


Things He Couldn't Give

by opheliadreaming



Series: Be My Love [2]
Category: Shakespeare RPF | Elizabethan & Jacobean Theater RPF, Will (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Autolycus Lives, Coming Out, Drug Addiction, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Internalized Homophobia, Minor Character Death, Multi, Police Violence (Robert Southwell stans do not interact), Slow Burn, Unacknowledged Mutual Pining, Unhappy Ending (for now), Unresolved Sexual Tension, drug overdose, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-11 15:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17449604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliadreaming/pseuds/opheliadreaming
Summary: Sophomore year brings with it challenges Will and Kit never could have seen coming. Love and loss, strain and doubt, each of them will be shaken to his core. Things fall apart, and time is not on the side of the living.





	1. Prologue

That you were once unkind befriends me now,

And for that sorrow which I then did feel

Needs must I under my transgression bow,

Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken

As I by yours, you’ve passed a hell of time,

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.

O, that our night of woe might have remembered

My deepest sense how hard true sorrow hits,

And soon to you as you to me then tendered

The humble salve which wounded bosoms fits!

But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

 

\- William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 120”


	2. Act I

**Scene 1**

William Shakespeare was determined to be better, even aiming for redemption. His fingers tightened on the cardboard box he was carrying up the stairs into his new apartment. He had to do better.

He loved Anne, and he had for as long as he could remember. They’d been best friends as children. Will could remember climbing trees in her backyard, then as they got older, afternoons spent sitting in the branches talking, just talking, about anything at all. He leaned the box against the wall and closed his eyes. It had been so easy back then. There had been no secrets between them, nothing that could break them apart. Will and Anne. Anne and Will. When they were in high school, everyone had expected them to become a couple, and they had, so they were still.

“Will? Do you have the next box?” Anne’s voice filtered through the open apartment door and down to him. He opened his eyes and continued the last steps up to the second floor and through his open apartment door. Inside, Anne was unpacking dishes from a plastic tub that, until recently, had belonged to his older sister, but had been gladly passed onto Will as he moved into his own place. He had a suspicion that Margaret had just wanted to clear out some storage space, but nevertheless, he was grateful for the set of dishes that were more than he ever expected to use. He set the box onto the wooden table that had inexplicably come with the apartment. Why a studio apartment needed a table that would sit six people, he wasn’t sure, but here it was.

He took the lid off the box and found some of his books that he’d acquired last year packed alongside his textbooks for the coming fall semester. That was why this one had been so heavy. He took it over to the wall across from his bed which was sitting on wooden pallets near the floor. It had been a near Herculean labor getting the mattress up the stairs for the two of them. The thought had already crossed his mind that it would have been so much easier if they’d had some help, but then his train of thought had stopped and fell off the tracks.

Whatever truce they’d had at the end of last year, had evaporated with the summer heat. Richard and Autolycus weren’t speaking to him, and Moll hadn’t contacted him either. He took their silence as a cue to not initiate contact after what he’d done. Alice was gone, and…and it wasn’t like he could ask her for anything ever again. Emilia wouldn’t come back to city for a couple more weeks, closer to when the semester started. That left Kit. They’d exchanged brief texts earlier in the summer, but he wasn’t sure how to read that interaction, but it didn’t really matter now. He’d see Kit soon, and they’d fall back into their familiar patterns without even thinking about it.

“Why didn’t you want to bring a bookshelf?” Anne asked, bringing over another box full of books and notebooks.

Will continued stacking his books against the wall under his window. “I didn’t want to crowd the apartment.”

“It’s probably better for their spines than stacking them on the floor.”

“They’re okay as long as the hardbounds are standing upright.” He adjusted _The Canterbury Tales_ to lean against an anthology of critical theory while laying paper backs at the end of the row to act as a bookend. He sat back on his heels, pleased with his little library.

He felt his unmade bed dip behind him as Anne sat on it. He leaned against her shins.

“I remember that I couldn’t wait to get out of the dorms,” she said. “No more communal bathrooms.” There was something in her voice that set Will on edge as guilt crept up his throat like acid. He’d known that going home meant facing her, knowing that she knew what he’d done. She’d cried, and he deserved it. It had been worse that she hadn’t yelled at him. Her silence had been worse, and he’d thought she would end things, end them, the natural consequence for his actions.

She hadn’t. She’d stayed, and the fears of what life would be like without her had never materialized, those ghosts remained ghosts, with no substance and only as much power as he gave them.

He was never going to give them power over him again. He would be faithful.

“It’s going to be completely different from last year,” he agreed. He leaned his head onto her knee and felt her fingers tug gently through his hair. It was soothing. When he closed his eyes again, they could’ve been at the park, Anne sitting against a tree with his head in her lap, fingers in his hair, soothing, together, and happy.

 

 

**Scene 2**

Things were simpler when Will was at home and away from school. He understood the patterns of his life, like dance steps. He was a son, a brother, and Anne’s boyfriend. They were going to get married one day in the church he’d gone to preschool at. A spring wedding with dancing into the night. He worked in his father’s shop, familiarizing himself with the family business. He knew how he fit into that place, and while some of the ease of being there still existed, most of it was gone.

Confessing to Anne hadn’t returned the shaken system to equilibrium. A different anxiety prickled under his skin, chafed like a too tight collar, and he didn’t know what to call it. He would go for walks in the evening on his own, to think. Walking through his neighborhood, the streets seemed shorter, the park not as far from home, the front windows of passing houses didn’t seem as tall.

It was two weeks of walking before Will realized that he’d outgrown his home town.

The revelation didn’t comfort him, and it didn’t ease the feeling that there was something he was hiding. It saddened him, left him feeling further from here than he had the whole previous school year. This was his home, but it didn’t feel that way anymore.

 

When he and Anne had driven back to the city, he felt like he was really going home. He didn’t have to follow established steps here, move in well worn circles. He didn’t have to hide anything here, and for that, his chest felt lighter, his smile more genuine. Then after Anne left, settling into living on his own felt even lighter. The solitude of his apartment felt like the quiet comfort of hiding under warm bed covers, the starry sky on a peaceful summer night. He was counting the days till the semester started, but the best part was that the feeling that his collar was too tight, his sleeves too short, was gone.

 

He’d texted Kit his address when he’d settled on the apartment, but didn’t hear anything back until one morning there was a knock at his door. He’d been sitting at his table writing, papers spread out across the smooth wooden surface. It was unnecessarily large for the small apartment but perfect for how Will wrote and studied, spread out and messy.

Crossing the few steps to his door, Will pulled it open, and Kit was standing on his doorstep. Will’s ease left him again, but the sensation that replaced it wasn’t unpleasant, and the smile that came to his face, came without impediment.

“Kit!”

“Well met, Will.” Kit smiled. He’d forgotten how blue Kit’s eyes were, and it sent a shiver down his spine that had Will averting his eyes. He was going to be better. He wasn’t going to let Anne down again. “Come in.”

Kit walked into his apartment with his hands still behind his back and his bag over one shoulder.

“How was your summer?” Will asked. He started gathering up paper and books for class, but he couldn’t find his backpack.

“Here,” Kit picked up his backpack and set it on the table next to a set of new legal pads. “Well, it’ll certainly make for great stories.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the best stories come from bad decisions, don’t you know that?”

Will chuckled and shook his head. “Somehow class didn’t cover that one.”

“Oh, that isn’t the kind of thing you learn in a class room.”

Will rolled his eyes. “So what’s behind your back?” Pens, now where were his pens? If something was not in his immediate range of sight, he didn’t know where it was, and there were only so many places objects could get to in his small apartment.

A sticker slid into Will’s vision. It was the kind of thing he’d seen slapped across water bottles and laptops. The classic masks, one for comedy and one for tragedy, grinned and frowned at him, and they were the colored in three stripes, vibrant pink, purple, and blue.

The bi pride flag. Will picked the sticker up, and remembered coming out to Kit the previous fall.

 

_He wasn_  ' _t sure how to get the words out, and even when he did, he didn’t sound convincing. Kit had waited silently, just letting him work out how he wanted to articulate his identity._

_“I…I’m bisexual, I guess, I mean. I don’t like labels, but I’m not straight so I need one, I guess? And having a word for it…it’s nice, but I…I don’t really know if…if I like using it.”_

_“Really? I suppose there had to be some descriptive language you weren’t enamored with, but okay.”_

_He hadn_ _’t been sure how he wanted Kit to react, although drunkenly flirting with him had probably been enough of a clue, but hearing the teasing tone of Kit’s voice settled something in Will, reminded him that confiding this piece of himself wasn’t going to crack the world—or him—in two._

_“I’ve never really…said it before. It feels like me, but it also doesn’t.”_

_“Will,” Kit’s voice was gentle, pitched lower than the constant hum of conversation in Groundlings, meant for only Will to hear. “It’s just a word. If you want it, it’s yours. If you don’t, then that’s fine too.”_

_Will had felt better with that._

“I know you weren’t sure about the label, but I saw this and,” Kit’s voiced faded to something quiet and gentle, “I thought of you. You don’t have to put it on anything. I imagine it’ll make a great bookmark.”

His tone warmed Will’s cheeks, and immediately, he moved towards his laptop to give his hands something to do. His tone comforted Will, but how he’d given Will an out to use the sticker where no one would see it comforted him more. It took two seconds for him to place the sticker and hold it up for Kit to see.

“Looks gay,” Kit said, then laughed at his own joke. Will shook his head and glanced towards the clock on the wall. They still had time before their class started, their first class of their second year.

Kit slung an arm over his shoulders. He was warm, and Will couldn’t help leaning into him as he was pulled slightly off balance. “Ready to return to the land of academia, institutionalized burnout, and outdated facilities?”

“Of course I am, Kit, I can’t wait,” Will groused, but it was half-hearted as he locked his apartment door behind him. Kit had removed his arm but was now facing Will with both hands resting on his shoulders. Held there, there wasn’t any place to look besides Kit’s eyes.

“Me too, Will.”

 

 

**Scene 3**

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Autolycus winced as they moved lights from the stage back to their temporary homes in storage. Autolycus had been moving gingerly all afternoon, and Will was concerned. He chewed on the inside of his cheek to stifle anything else he wanted to say. Autolycus was lying through his teeth that he was fine, but Richard still wasn’t talking to him so that meant Autolycus wasn’t either. He’d hoped that being back in the theater, being back in the routine of the semester might change things between them, but a month in, and they were no closer to being friends than they had been in May.

Will followed Autolycus back towards the storage area until he stopped and roughly set the box down. He was pale, and sweat was beading on his forehead.

“You’re not okay. What’s going on?”

Autolycus sank onto a trunk. “It’s just my back. It hurt earlier, but I thought it would go away, and it’s only gotten worse.” His voice was faint, and Will half extended his hand before thinking better of it.

“Have you told anyone?”

“No, I thought it would go away.”

Will repressed a sigh. “You need to go to a doctor. Or at the very least go home.”

“I can’t drive like this, just give me a minute.”

Frustration mingled with concern felt like it was boiling Will’s mind. “Give me your keys. I’ll drive.”

Autolycus finally looked at him. “You can’t drive.”

“Just because I ride a bike doesn’t mean I didn’t learn how to drive,” Will muttered, holding his hand out.

It was a few heartbeats of hard staring before Autolycus reached into his pocket and placed a set of keys with a starling key chain into his open hand.

“A starling?” Will asked. He held his arms out to help Autolycus up, but was ignored.

“You recognize it?”

“I hear them at home all the time.” It didn’t take much to recall the varied whistles and chirps of the birds that seemed to follow him everywhere.

“On a good day, I’ll show you how I can imitate them perfectly,” Autolycus said as they made for the nearest side door. His voice was still strained, but Will heard a smile there. It encouraged him, hearing that smile, like a crocus pushing through layers of icy snow. Spring was coming.

“Even on a good day, I’d rather not.”

“Asshole.”

 

It was hard to sit still once there was nothing to do but wait. Autolycus was lying in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, and Will was sitting and waiting and trying to look calm.

“You really don’t have to stay here,” Autolycus muttered for the third time.

Will shrugged like it didn’t bother him. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“I don’t mind.”

Will shrugged again. It was easier that way. It was easier to shrug rather than explain the tangled worry and the persistent hurt that his friends weren’t his friends anymore. Was Autolycus just trying to get rid of him nicely? As some sort of debt owed for bringing him here?

It was harder to push thoughts like that away when there was nothing to do but wait.

“How do you feel?” Will asked.

Autolycus’s face scrunched up. “Like shit.”

They fell back into silence. Will’s thoughts spiraled around again. He’d texted Richard, and hopefully he would read the message before discarding it. Will told himself that their absence had probably been noticed by now, and that Autolycus’s car being gone would be another clue. If it was just Will gone, Richard wouldn’t care, but Autolycus was here too. He’d be here. Will was sure of that.

He breathed deeply, trying to release some of the tension in his shoulders as he sat up in the chair.

“Really, you don’t need to stay.”

Will exhaled sharply and turned to Autolycus. “I’m staying. I know we haven’t been speaking, but you’re my friend. I’m going to make sure you’re okay.”

Autolycus was still staring at the ceiling.

Silence descended again, and time dripped by. Until Richard showed up, then time started working properly again. Will’s shoulders eased down. He could breathe again, around the hurt.

“Autolycus.” Richard’s eyes slid over Will who felt a familiar ache in his chest. It was fine. He deserved it.

“I’ll give you a minute,” he murmured as he made for the door.

“Thanks, Will.” Autolycus’s voice was quiet between the three of them, and it pinned Will in the doorway. He forced his face into a smile and continued out of the room and into the hallway that led back out into a waiting room where people were, and at the moment, it was easier to remain in the hallway, in this in-between place, than to walk back out amongst them.

Will didn’t mind hospitals, not really. It was just that every time he’d been in one, something had been wrong. His sister had broken her arm in middle school, and he’d been checked out of school to go to the hospital with her and his mom. He’d visited sick relatives before. When one of the students in his high school theater class was diagnosed with cancer, they’d all come to visit. So maybe, he did mind them a little after all.

And now Autolycus was sick and in pain with something the doctors hadn’t figured out yet, but it was still early. A solution was there. The doctors would find it. Autolycus would get better, and then they could all go back to their new normal of not talking to each other, of not being friends.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes so that when he opened them he saw spots, small stains on his field of vision that vanished as he blinked. Apologizing, confessing, promising to do better didn’t erase his guilt. It was still there, but now it was less of a globe on his shoulders and more of a hulking shadow that followed him around.

The door to Autolycus’s room opened, and Richard walked out towards him. He leaned against the wall next to Will with his arms crossed. Will eyed him cautiously. He didn’t look mad at least, but Richard could still rightly punch him.

Richard looked how Will remembered him from the end of last year. Serious and reserved. He wasn’t laughing, play-acting, tossing his hair back where it fell in his eyes.

“Hi,” Will said. One of them had to say something.

“Thanks for texting me. I had no idea. I thought he’d just pulled a muscle or something.”

_It_ _’s what friends do_ , but Will didn’t say that. “That’s what he thought it was too.”

They fell back into silence again. It was like talking to Autolycus, but worse. Richard broke the silence next.

“They told me not to be mad at you.”

“They?” Will asked.

“Alice,” Richard said. “They don’t want me to be mad at you.

_Oh, oh._ Understanding trickled through his mind along with questions he didn’t deserve the answers to. _They? When did that happen?_ He hadn’t heard from Alice since the previous year when they’d told him they were transferring schools in an email. He hadn’t written back. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t make everything worse. There was still nothing he could do, but there was a new ache to his guilt now for how cleanly Alice had excised him from their life and how much better they were for it.

“You should be.”

“I am.”

“I know, and I’m—”

Richard cut him off. “Don’t say you’re sorry again. Does it even mean anything when you’ve said it so many times?”

Will shut his mouth.

“Look,” Richard turned to face him, “you took care of Autolycus when you could have said he wasn’t your problem—”

“You think I’m that much of an asshole?”

Richard gave him a look, and Will knew he’d asked a stupid question. “You don’t want me to answer that.”

“No, you’re right.”

“You took care of him, so thanks, I guess.” Richard held out his hand for Will to shake, and he did.

It was still awkward. It was too polite with too many thank yous. Will hated it. 

“You don’t have to thank me. He’s my friend,” he said, then, thinking he might as well go for it. “And so are you.” _If you guys can forgive me_ seemed to be asking for too much even if he felt brave.

“Yeah,” Richard agreed. “I guess we are.”

At his words, part of the hurt that was lodged in his chest broke off and turned into hope.

 

**Scene 4**

Kit was comfortably warm and not inclined to ever move again. His ear didn’t really hurt anymore. It might later, but then, he’d deal with that when it happened. Unfortunately, the wine had worn off, but it was too far away to be worth getting up to go get. And he was too warm. Emilia was closer and could get the wine, but he didn’t want to interrupt whatever Will was saying. Moments with this Will who spoke rivers and oceans of words were some of Kit’s favorite. He wanted to listen for hours and hours, drink him in.

His eyes had drifted shut, and he opened them and blinked. Will wasn’t his, and he was truly terrible at remembering that.

“…my ear pierced. I can’t believe I agreed to this. Why did I do this? Why did you _let_ me do this?”

Kit looked over at Will who was twisting the stud earring between his fingers. It had a small blue stone set in it, and it matched the one in Kit’s left ear.

 

_“What about blue? It’ll match your eyes,” Emilia suggested as they looked at the case of earrings they could get. Emilia had already picked hers for her cartilage piercing. “Both of you.”_

_As if they hadn_ _’t believed her, they’d both turned to look each other, to really confirm that they both had blue eyes. Kit didn’t think he’d ever get used to being caught in Will’s stare. His eyes were too blue and saw too much, but Kit never asked what he saw in_ _him_ _. Whatever it was, Will was still here._

_“Your eyes are very blue,” Will said, his voice pitched lower than it would have been if he was sober._

_Caring less than if he was sober too, Kit said,_ _“So are yours.”_

Will’s eyes were warm as he worried at his new earring. Kit didn’t mind this stare so much.

“You can always take it out if you don’t like it,” he said.

Will frowned and dropped his fingers. “I like it though.”

“Me too.” Kit smiled. Will’s head was close to leaning on his shoulder where he was slouched into Kit’s couch. They’d all come back here after getting holes punched through their ears, and it felt right to him. Right that Will and Emilia moved around his apartment as easily as he did. Right that it felt so warm with them there.

 

_Kit was going first because of course he was. It was understood amongst the three of them that Kit did the jumping while Will and Emilia did the looking. It was natural that he was seated in the chair first._

_“Want me to hold your hand?” Will_ _slouched_ _against the wall next to him. His eyes glinted with a challenge that Kit registered. Maybe it was because they were all a little drunk, maybe it was because it was night time, or maybe there was something else flowing in their veins that had Will holding out his hand._

_Whatever it was, Kit didn_ _’t care as he put his hand in Will’s and held tight. Emilia leaned against Will, her hands folded on top of his shoulder. It was nice having them here, and Kit felt a warmth in his chest that he wanted to gather up and keep for days w_ _hen even his bones seemed to be cold._

_His attention frayed then refocused on the gentle slide of Will_ _’s thumb over his knuckles. If his thoughts were marching in their regular, orderly lines, he wouldn’t have looked at Will, but as it was, they weren’t. Will was still watching him with sparkling eyes and rubbing circles into the back of his hand._

_Kit hardly felt the piercing gun punch the stud through his ear lobe, focused as he was on Will_ _’s hand in his. The new earring refracted the overhead lights when he looked at his reflection._

_“My turn,” Will said, grinning._

_“Shall I hold your hand?”_

_“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”_

Kit glanced down at his right hand again. His skin was clear where it felt like there should’ve been a mark, proof that Will had touched him. The wine had worn off, but now it was late at night, and something like Will holding his hand, rubbing soothing circles into it, seemed more believable than it would have in the bright light of day. Will’s voice brought him out of the memory.

“My dad is going to make me take it out,” Will said. “Not good for interviews and whatever.”

“Tell him it’s my fault,” Kit teased.”

Will laughed, leaning onto Kit’s shoulder. His curls tickled Kit’s cheek. “He’d think you were a bad influence on me,” he tipped his face up to look at Kit. “And you _are_ a bad influence, Kit Marlowe.”

There was too much of the pervasive warmth he felt in Will’s voice for the indictment to land with any weight.

“I’ll ruin you, Will Shakespeare.”

And, without missing a beat. “I’d let you.”

His stomach flipped, but it wasn’t unpleasant. There was so much about this that wasn’t unpleasant. Will’s hair against his cheek, his warmth, the conviction behind whatever he’d meant because surely it meant _something_.

Kit was leaning down, and it didn’t look like Will was going to stop him.

“I’ve got the popcorn.” Emilia came back into the room and sat on the end of the couch on Will’s other side. He sat up quickly and reached for a handful while Kit tried to marshal his tired mind back into order. He tucked his hair behind his ear as if it would somehow clear the thoughts he absolutely shouldn’t have about kissing Will. Will and Emilia were laughing about something on her phone, and Kit reminded himself, again, that Will wasn’t his, not like that.


	3. Act II

**Scene 1**

_can u meet me at my place in 20 min_

That was the only thing he’d heard from Will. They didn’t have a class together today so a text wasn’t out of the ordinary, but now he could tell him his news in person. He was going to study abroad next year, and even though he was just starting the application process, it was all he wanted to talk about. He wanted to tell Will, hear his excitement, share it, share excited smiles and plans about everything that next year could be. He tried to use the excitement of his news to ward off the uneasy feeling Will’s text gave him, but it wasn’t working too well.

The weather was getting colder. October hadn’t entirely given over to winter yet, but maybe Will had the flu, maybe he was just sick and needed Kit to help him with something.

He remembered when he’d gotten the flu last year, and didn’t get out of bed unless absolutely necessary. After picking up a prescription, he’d found several sheets of lined paper rolled together and put in his mailbox. What they were was unclear based on the barely legible handwriting, but the attached sticky note helped a little, still in the same hand, but the author had slowed down a little when writing it: _missed you in class today. Get better, okay?_ _\- Will_

Even though he had signed it, Kit would have known the messy handwriting anywhere. No one else had quite that same rushed scrawl with sometimes connected letters and phrases. Kit hadn’t looked at the pages until he felt well enough to decipher them, but he’d tucked the small note into _Paradise Lost_ with the rest of Will’s sticky note messages that he kept. If ever asked, he was never going to admit to keeping them. There wasn’t any explanation behind keeping _you_ _’re out of milk_ that wouldn’t expose him and the feelings Will couldn’t know about. And really, who was likely to read an iambic pentameter epic for fun and find about?

_Will, Will would._

Kit with news on his lips knocked on Will’s door, and it opened a few moments later. All the words he’d looked forward to sharing died where they waited, like ships sunk before they could leave the harbor. Will didn’t meet his eyes as he pulled the door open and hurried back to a half-packed bag that was sitting on the dining room table that served as table, desk, and catch all.

“Hello to you too,” Kit said. His quiet voice rose at the end like he was asking a question. The emptiness in Will’s gaze had robbed him of his usual edge and volume like sails without wind.

Will was hastily folding shirts and stuffing them into the bag. “Sorry, I just need to leave soon.”

“If this is a bad time, I can come back later.”

“No.” Will stopped long enough to actually look him in the eye before turning away, muttering to himself. “Suit, suit. I need my suit. Where’s my suit?”

Kit started at the anguish in Will’s eyes before he turned to look around the apartment, spotting a garment bag peeking out from under a wool coat on one of the chairs. “Wait, Will, slow down.” He picked up the suit and brought it over to Will’s bag. “What’s going on?”

“Thanks,” Will’s hands shook as he grabbed the suit just to set it down again. “I—I have to go home for a few days. Can you take notes for me?”

He still wasn’t looking at Kit, and the feeling of wrongness had settled solidly in his stomach. Will was pale, and his hands were shaking. He kept running his hand through his hair the way he did when he was anxious. “Sure, whatever you need, but, Will, talk to me.”

“My dad died.” He moved towards the small dresser, and pulled out some socks. “I—”

There was a sharpness in his chest to hear Will at a loss for words as he moved away again, and what he’d come here to say seemed like an infinitely distant thought. It didn’t matter right now. Only one thing did. “ _Will._ _”_

Will stood still next to his bag, still, but painful to see. The socks were in his hand. His blue eyes which were normally so curious looked like fragments of broken glass. Kit moved closer to him, and Will looked away. He was clenching his jaw, and his shoulders were held straight. On a better day, he might have radiated strength, but here, he just looked brittle, like a rough touch would break him.

“Will,” Kit said, quietly, softly.

“I know what you’re going to ask, and I’m fine, Kit.”

He shook his head. “You’re not fine.” Kit reached for his hand. He knew what he was doing. He knew it was wrong, but Will was hurting. Another glance at the dead look on his face told Kit that it probably hadn’t hit him yet, losing his father, his father who a month ago, Will had said wouldn’t like his ear piercing. The memory that they’d joked so lightly about it turned Kit’s stomach.

“I just really need to go. I’ll see you in a few days,” Will said, grabbing his bag and heading for the door. “Key’s on the table.” His hand slid through Kit’s like he was no more present than an shade in Erebus. The door shut behind him.

“See you in a few days.” The empty apartment swallowed his voice.

 

**Scene 2**

The inside of his lip was painful from where he’d bitten it raw. Apart from giving his father’s eulogy, he really hadn’t had to speak much. He said thank you when people told him they were sorry for his loss. He said he was okay when they asked how he was because how could he really explain the wound that he was sure would never close? How did he explain something that lived somewhere between unbelievable and too real?

_How?_

Will had no answers. He could steal answers from plays, books, and songs, but they weren’t enough. Time heals all wounds? Wouldn’t time just serve to remind him that he _had_ a wound?

The funeral had happened and ended. Their home was still full of food people had brought and siblings gathered together again. His older sister, Margaret, and her husband were at the house more often. He was home, and his two younger siblings seemed smaller than he remembered, younger somehow. Maybe he and Margaret seemed that way too, more like children than adults.

Will shut his eyes and listened to the pulse pounding in his head. When he opened his eyes, he stared as close to the sun as he could, squinting as he felt the tears recede. He needed to hold it together. They couldn’t all break down.

His father had been the calm rock in the family. Whatever was going on around them, whatever was in his immediate circle, he found his way through it. He wasn’t here now, and they needed him more than ever. Everything Will had ever seen told him that they would all get through this, but standing on this side of the sea, the other shore seemed to be a false dream sent through the gates of ivory.

The overturned earth in front of him formed a small mound over his father’s interred casket.

“Hey.” Will looked over his shoulder as Margaret walked to stand next to him.

“Hey,” he said. It was easier with her. With the little ones, he felt more of the constant need to hold it together, and when his mom was around, he didn’t want to show that he was hurting. He didn’t want to make this any worse than it already was, but with Margaret, it was easier. He didn’t to pay as much attention to what was slipping though the cracks.

It was also somehow easier that they weren’t as close as they had been when younger. Margaret was grown up, married. She had her own life, and they’d fallen into some pattern of speaking every few months or at major holidays. It was just how things were now.

“I keep thinking about when he walked me down the aisle. How if we’d waited till spring, that that wouldn’t have happened.”

Will nodded. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. In his head, the list of events that his dad wouldn’t be there for spiraled endlessly. How many holidays, graduations, weddings, birthdays. There was so much he was missing, and it was still _their loss_ as everyone kept reminding him.

 _He doesn_ _’t know that I’m not mad at him. He doesn’t know that I don’t want to go into business. He doesn’t know so much about me._ Saying it in his head achieved as much as what he’d said out loud. Nothing.

They stood together a little longer. The sun was sinking behind them, and their shadows stretched out on the ground. Margaret tucked her arm through his, and they stood there together. He wasn’t sure who was holding who up.

He couldn’t find it in himself to say anything. He didn’t have the words to express himself, and whenever he tried, his throat closed up, his eyes stung. It was easier to just not say anything, and right now, easy he would take.

“I’m going to go back to the house,” Margaret said. “Try and come back before it gets dark out, okay?”

“Sure.”

She squeezed his arm before walking off. He heard her car start and drive away, leaving him alone as the silence settled around him again. Silent except for the hum of cars on the road to his left. Silent except for the whispers of wind through the trees. Silent except for the crunching of dry, dead grass as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Silent because he wasn’t saying anything and he hadn’t said anything.

 

**Scene 3**

It was dark when he got back to his apartment. Hearing the lock click behind him as he shut the door let him relax another tick. He’d been careful to keep his shoulders straight, keep his chin level if not up, keep his fingers from worrying at his sleeves, a pen, anything he could get his hands on. Now that he was back in the city, alone in his apartment, he didn’t have to be careful about who saw how he wrapped his arms around himself, how he let his hair fall into his face and obscure his vision, how he cried.

Will’s eyes stung as he set his bags down, but surprise overwhelmed his swell of grief. Someone had tidied his apartment. Papers and books on the table were stacked in neat piles. Glancing over at the sink, the dishes he’d left there were gone, and the drying rack was empty. They’d even made his bed.

_Kit._

His name was on Will’s tongue even though there was no one to speak to. Kit had done this for him, and Will let out a stuttering breath. At the end of the table he found a sticky note on top of a pile of what looked to be class notes.

_Call me when you get back okay? -M_

_M_ for Marlowe, for Kit. His fingers brushed over the note, and he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He couldn’t talk to Kit like this. Will hadn’t even been able to talk to his own sister. And before that, he hadn’t been honest with his own father. How could he go to Kit when every fiber of his being was bare, presented without adornment? _My father is dead. My father doesn_ _’t know me, but do you? Do you know me?_

No, he couldn’t call Kit.

He couldn’t ask that of him when he didn’t know what he was asking for.

Light from the street lamps outside curled around the edges of his blinds like fingers trying to peel the door away from his haven. Breathing, existing was easier here, but it wasn’t now.

 _My dad is dead. My dad is dead. He_ _’s dead. He’s gone. He’s dead._ The refrain in his thoughts echoed endless and persistent. Would it ever end? Or would the refrain wash over him so many times until he was worn down then pulled apart?

Time heals all wounds? He didn’t see how it could.

His shoes clattered across the his apartment as he kicked them off and fell onto his bed, aware that someone—Kit—had pulled the covers back, making it easy to climb under them. The refrain stopped briefly as he turned his face into the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut.

Cinnamon, cloves, the last dying days of autumn. A sharp grin across a coffee shop table. Blond hair tucked behind one ear and curling slightly at his shoulder. The reassurance of a vital and necessary friendship.

The pillow that smelled like Kit’s perpetual autumn caught the tears that leaked out of his shut eyes, and Will hurriedly tried to drift into sleep, plunging down into the dark depths where the refrain would stop, where he wouldn’t have to think or feel.

When he did slip into sleep, he was warm.

 

**Scene 4**

Kit’s eyes darted towards stage left where his phone was sitting balanced on a ledge. The screen was dark, but had it just gone dark? Did he get a notification and he’d missed it? He hadn’t heard from Will since he’d left last week, but he was probably back in town now right? Maybe? He’d waited for Will in their class about the influence of Greek drama on English literature, a class Will had been excited about in August.

His lips twitched into a smile as he remembered how Will had their assigned text book but also two other translations. When he’d asked why, Will had just shrugged, smiling. “I want to read all of them.” It was so like him. As often as Kit was willing to listen to him talk about stories and plays he wanted to write, theories he had on their readings, there were always more words he was reading and taking in. It was an endless torrent, and more often than not, it was nice to be carried along by Will and his words.

He remembered Pylades promising to take care of Orestes, and Kit understood him more  now. He glanced at where his phone was, but Orestes wasn’t answering.

_But I tried. I tried to take care of him._

When Will had left him standing in his apartment last Thursday, the silence had been overwhelming. Will had blown out the door, but the haunted look he’d worn seemed to linger behind like a miasma that Kit felt crawling over his skin. It was worse than the moments when Will looked uncomfortable and Kit worried that he’d messed up again, chalked up another tally for why he wasn’t worth keeping around. This time he hadn’t been able to cheer Will up at all, and Will hadn’t let him even try.

_What could you have even done? You walk through life burning bridges and using their destruction for warmth? How could you possibly take care of one like him?_

The voice of his thoughts was right. Tenderness, gentle affection, that was unedged and _careful,_ he shook his head. These were things he couldn’t give, because these were things he wasn’t made for.

“Christopher Marlowe!”

He blinked, refocusing on his surroundings, swimming up from the depths of his faults. His classmates and fellow actors were all looking at him expectantly from the other side of the stage. Emilia was glaring at him with her hands on her hips. Their script was clutched in her hand, and Kit remembered the prop he was holding, a bouquet, but he couldn’t recall what he was supposed to be doing with it.

“Sorry,” he said, and walked over to join everyone else on the other side of the stage.

Emilia sighed, loudly, “Your mark is up _here_.” She pointed to a spot at the front of the stage. “And do you remember your speech?”

Kit’s mind had gone blank as she stared him down, waiting for him to focus on the task at hand, not on whether or not his phone had rang, not on Orestes, and not on Will.

“…sorry,” he said again.

“Take five.”

“Thank you five.”

Kit stood still as the rest of the cast drifted into the wings or hopped off the front of the stage. Emilia came over and leaned her arms onto the stage. He sat down in front of her. She’d pulled her hair back in a bun, and the stage lights glinted off the new piercing in her ear. As if reminded, Kit reached up to the blue-stoned stud in his ear, and was immediately reminded of the matching one in Will’s ear, as if Will was ever far from his thoughts.

“Opening night is in a week,” she said.

“I know.”

“You’ve been forgetting blocking all week, and now you’ve forgotten your big speech?”

Kit sighed. “I know I’m sorry.”

“Something’s bothering you. Is—is everything okay with Emerson?” Her voice softened, and Kit heard the worry in it. He hadn’t introduced them to Emerson, and he felt his own doubt about his relationship rise in his throat at Emilia’s question.

 _You_ _’re not made for such things._

Tenderness, affection, devotion. He always ruined them. It was just a matter of time, and now he worried that his relationship with Emerson had reached its end, that he’d burned that candle away.

“No, he’s fine,” even to his own ears, he didn’t sound convincing. “I’m worried about Will.”

“It’s not like Kit Marlowe to worry,” she said with a hint of teasing.

“Emilia, I’m serious.” _His dad died._ Should he tell her? Had Will told anyone else? He’d rushed out of his apartment that day, and Kit wondered if Will would’ve even told him. Had he only confided in Kit because Will knew he was going to be gone? Even then, it hadn’t been easy to get him to slow down long enough and explain himself. Kit had the feeling that Will hadn’t told anyone else, so then was it right for him to tell Emilia? He also had the feeling that if he hadn’t pulled it out of him, Will wouldn’t have told him, but he tried not to focus on that.

“Kit, what happened?”

He met her eyes. Will hadn’t prohibited him from telling anyone, but he remembered how it felt to see Will in that moment, how seeing him that raw had pained him, helpless to comfort Will in any way. He’d tried, he remembered, but Will had practically sprinted out the apartment to get away from him. He was not made for such things as comfort. He should have known better that Will wouldn’t have turned to him.

What did that mean that Will hadn’t confided in her? Wouldn’t have confided in him? Kit looked away because he was kidding himself right? He knew why Will hadn’t wanted to confide in him. He couldn’t keep things from breaking. He couldn’t be the safe harbor to shelter Will’s pain.

But not Emilia. She was good. She listened and cared without breaking things, feelings, people. If anyone was to be trusted with delicate, fragile things like human hearts, it should be her. Not him.

“His dad died,” Kit said finally.

“Oh Will.” Emilia covered her mouth with her hand.

Kit agreed.


	4. Act III

**Scene 1**

Until his doorbell rang, Kit wasn’t sure that it was going to. He saw Emerson less during the semester than he would have during breaks, and with finals less than a month away, it wasn’t as if either of them had buckets of spare time to spend together. He knew all of that, but a persistent worry had started in his mind, and now it was constantly with him. Answering the door and seeing Emerson again banished a little of his fear, but only temporarily.

“My king,” he breathed.

Emerson shook his head slightly, but he was still smiling as he stepped across the threshold. “I always thought that name was a bit much, Wasp.”

“The first time I met you,” Kit walked back to the couch and sunk into it. “You were wearing an ermine cape and holding a crown.”

“And I told you I was holding them for a friend,” Emerson said while leaving his shoes and jacket by the door. “But you still called me a tyrant.”

Kit shrugged. “ _Sic semper tyrannis._ ”

“Yeah, that.” Emerson sat on the other end of the couch with his sketchbook open in his lap, and the silence of Kit’s apartment entered again. Their conversation stalled like this. Kit was noticing it more and more each time they were together. They were talking less, even less than the little they already saw each other. He wasn’t sure how to fix it. Whatever he tried led to another dead end, if not immediately, then eventually it would.

“What are you working on?”

Emerson glanced up. “Another sketch of you. I can draw you from memory now.”

“Can I see?” Kit asked, but he knew what the answer would be, what it always was.

“Not till it’s done, not till it’s a true likeness.”

Kit didn’t press him on it. Try as he might, he’d never seen one of Emerson’s sketches of him. He’d seen other ones. Drawings of objects on the table, the bust from the philosophy department lobby in charcoal, wispy clouds labeled with the date. Kit loved to see his art, to see how Emerson saw the world, and it made him wonder, how Emerson saw him.

It felt like Emerson didn’t see him anymore, or, not really. Kit felt like he was fading, losing touch as graduation loomed closer. He’d seen the list of graduate programs Emerson was interested in, and none of them were close by. Kit hadn’t asked what that meant for them. Not knowing was bad enough, but it wasn’t the worst thing to bear. So he stayed silent.

“How was the meeting?” he found his voice again. The lulls in their conversation seemed to swallow any words he could’ve said, making it that much harder to speak.

Emerson shrugged then put his pencil down. “Fine. It’s a constant process, maintaining my sobriety.” His expression clouded over, and Kit felt something tilt. There was something off balance in what Emerson was saying, but no, there wasn’t? It sounded like he was reciting from a manual, but that wasn’t wrong, really. Emerson was a recovering heroin addict, and Kit knew that every day wasn’t the same, wouldn’t always be easy.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Emerson shook his head. “It’s alright, Wasp. I’m handling it.”

When Emerson looked back at him, the world settled back into place. Emerson was clean, healthy. He was here, and looking at Kit the way that reminded him of how loved he was.

He was seeing ghosts again, and he really wished he wouldn’t. Kit moved closer to Emerson and wrapped his arms around him.

“Oh?”

“I’m just happy to see you.”

“Me too, Wasp. Me too.” They would keep the ghosts away.

 

**Scene 2**

Will glanced at his backpack that was sitting on a chair next to him. It was unzipped, and inside were a few notebooks, an empty lap top sleeve, a translation of the _Oresteia_ , and another book he was reading for class. At the bottom of his backpack, there were any number of black pens, pencils, and an empty blue pens he kept forgetting to throw away. In front of him, his schedule was displayed on his laptop as he tried to find time for, well, homework. He was a student with a job, extracurriculars, and what had he forgotten? He’d forgotten to leave himself time to do his actual coursework.

He sighed and rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes till he saw spots. When he set about typing again—he found a few hours on Friday to get some work done—his right hand felt heavy. He wasn’t used to the weight of the silver ring on his thumb, but he’d been wearing it since the funeral. It was his father’s class ring.

Emilia sat across from him in her dining room. Her own laptop was out as she steadily worked on a document, probably a paper. They had finals in a little under a month, and Will wasn’t ready. He never felt ready, but this time, he hadn’t left himself enough time to study. The oversight had been an accident, but on purpose. It was easier to not think about _it_ if he was busy, in class one minute, then off to a group project meeting, then to work at The Globe, the Burbage’s theater, and at the end of the day, he’d be too tired and too pressed for time to think about anything other than homework and sleep. Realizing he’d overbooked himself was an unintended consequence.

Still, it crept up on him during the day. In his classes, plays would mention the death of a father, and then Will was standing in front of a fresh grave again. A friend would casually mention how they weren’t out to their parents, and Will’s insides would wilt and turn to ash. His family didn’t know, and now it was too late to tell his dad. Once he was on the track of what he hadn’t told his dad, the rest of the grief cascade followed.

He reached up to twist the plain silver stud in his ear. Margaret had a pair that she never wore, and this one was more subtle than the blue stone he’d gotten back in September. He’d thought about taking the earring out entirely and letting the hole close up. It’s what his father would have wanted, and now that Will couldn’t ask him…

He didn’t finish the thought. Staring at the setting sun forced him to squint, but it also warded off tears. He had too much to do and not enough time to do it all, and nowhere in his schedule was there time to cry.

“Hey, you okay?” Emilia had stopped typing and was looking at him with concern written all over her face.

“I’m fine. Just tired,” he said and smiled. The robotic _thank yous_ at the funeral had been bad enough—what was he even thanking them for—but the way people looked at him, knowing his dad was gone, was worse. He hated the looks like he was broken, or too small and vainly reaching for something on the highest shelf. The looks seemed to say _poor, Will_ and _it_ _’s hard now, but it’ll get better._ He still didn’t see how grief went away, how the wound was ever supposed to seal up into a scar.

And he hated that he hated their concern. Friends of his family that were more like aunts and uncles with their sad eyes who gently hugged his shoulders and shook his hand. Anne who had held his hand and his heart while he sat silently with dry, red eyes. Kit, who he still hadn’t called, but he remembered how he’d looked at him like he himself was in pain. Even how Emilia was looking at him now. They were concerned because they cared about him, and for whatever reason, he couldn’t stand to be the object of their care.

“Will,” she closed her computer. “You’ve hardly said anything since you’ve been back, and it’s been over a month.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s just—” he put his head in his hands. He didn’t want to talk about this. And what good would talking about it even do? Whatever he said now wouldn’t undo the fact that his father hadn’t even _known_ him.

“Just what?” Her voice was quiet and soft, and Will dug his fingers into his hair. _Just that I didn_ _’t tell him anything, anything that mattered._

“Just that he’s gone,” he said to the table. He couldn’t do this if he was looking at her. “Just that he’s gone, and there’s so much I’ll never get to say to him,” then, even quieter, “so much I _didn_ _’t_ say to him.”

She didn’t say anything for a few moments, and Will didn’t either. He closed his eyes and started counting his breaths. It was something he did at night before he fell asleep. If his mind was counting breaths, then it couldn’t think about anything else.

After 28 breaths, Emilia spoke. “You never came out to him, did you?”

Will shook his head and sat up when the motion made him dizzy.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

_What good would it do?_ There were things he couldn’t tell his dad—and would never be able to tell him—but he could live his life in such a way that would have made his dad proud. To that end, he glanced at the clock on his computer screen and was reminded, again, of how little time he had. Of how little time they all had.

He met her eyes. “No.”

 

**Scene 3**

This was going to look horrible.

“It’s the Nutcracker, and it’s Christmas. This will be festive.” Baxter had certainly said that, but festive wasn’t the word Will would have picked when he started cutting gels for the stage lights.

Hellish would’ve been a better description. Would Baxter listen? No, of course not, not to Will. He was just a spot op, and Baxter was the lighting designer so of course he knew best on these things. It wasn’t like the rest of them didn’t have eyes or anything.

Looking at them, Will figured the amber and gold gels wouldn’t actually look too bad. They might even look _nice_ , but red? Orange? He was going to cut those last and hope and pray to god that someone would come in and tell him not to cut those.

Even if he had to put up with Baxter’s lack of taste, cutting gels on the ground was better than crouching up on the catwalk to hang the lights. Knowing Baxter, he might make Will sweat up there longer than was truly necessary, but not long enough to arouse notice. He’d just want Will to know that he could fuck with him like that. Still, he was glad he had this task to do.

It gave his hands something to do, and there was enough concentration required to not tear them that his mind couldn’t wander back to thinking about his dad. After cutting the new gels Baxter had ordered, he’d have to track down the others, and that was going to be its own adventure. He wasn’t looking forward to hanging the lights, but it would keep him busy which was the current goal.

Staying busy was why he was only going home for a couple days to spend Christmas with his family. If he slowed down at all, if he stopped moving, then he knew the grief would wash over him again, and it’d be so much harder to come back up for air. He would work through the holiday season, and he was taking two classes over the break, two classes that would easily fit into his schedule next spring. He liked being able to tell himself that he was being proactive about his degree requirements even as he knew he was just giving himself busy work.

Only the orange gel needed to be cut, and Will was stalling. There was no way this would look good, and worse than looking bad, it was going to be down right disturbing. Baxter really had no taste.

The door opened, and Will’s hopes ticked up a couple notches. It was Richard.

“There you are, Baxter is—oh my god is that an orange gel?” Richard’s eyes widened as he took in the gel Will had laid out to be cut.

“Baxter wants to use it in the Nutcracker.”

“That’s going to look terrible.”

Will nodded. “Someone should tell him that taste doesn’t come with the title.”

Richard laughed, and the sound of it pulled something reminiscent of a chuckle out of Will.

“Anyways, Baxter is looking for you.”

Will nodded. “Thanks, I should really finish cutting this.” But he didn’t move to cut the gel, and Richard was still standing next to the table. Will wondered if he was going to say something else about Alice, and he found that thinking about them didn’t hurt as much as it used to because other things hurt more.

“Autolycus is doing well. He hasn’t had any more kidney stones since then.”

“That’s good. I’m glad he’s doing well.”

“How are _you_ , Will?” Richard’s tone was light, but Will’s throat closed up. He couldn’t tell if Richard knew or not, but he had to right? That was surely why he was even bothering to talk to Will.

Will shrugged. “I’m fine, just trying to get through finals,” he set the box cutter down. “And there’s no way I’m going to let Baxter use this. He can cut it himself.”

“I’ll tell dad how you saved the audience from something truly horrifying,” Richard grinned. If he noticed that Will changed the subject, he didn’t mind, or he was letting Will get away with it.

Will’s chest tightened as the breath left him when Richard talked about his father, his living and breathing father. “Yeah, really though,” he breathed. “Listen, I have to track down the rest of the gels—”

“Want some help?”

Will smiled. “Thanks, Richard.”


	5. Act IV

**Scene 1**

He was starting to think that Will wasn’t going to show up. He kept glancing at his phone, checking the time. The study guide he was supposed to be filling out was sitting open on his computer in front of him with only the first two objectives completed. The test was in two days, but he was finding it difficult to worry about that while the chair across from him remained empty.

_Where are you Will?_

He focused again on his study guide with his tea warming his hands, and the steam twisting in front of his eyes. Whether or not Will was coming wasn’t a matter of his belief. He couldn’t will Will to walk through the door with ink stained fingers and an easy smile. Kit smiled weakly at his own pun, and he could see Will rolling his eyes if he’d said it allowed.

_“Will you ever not pun on my name?”_

_“Someone has to.”_

Will wouldn’t cancel again would he? Before Kit could start rationalizing reasons for why he would, the bell over Groundlings’s front door tinkled, pulling his attention to the figure in the doorway, wrapped up in a wool coat and scarf.

“Sorry, I’m late.” Will hurriedly put his bag down and shed his coat. It took Kit a minute to respond as he watched Will blow in like a storm. Kit could see that his hair was damp, and his curls hung limply in his eyes even as he pushed them back. He smelled like rain and cold. “Kit?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Sorry, I’m late.”

“You’re here now,” he said, managing a tight smile. Will nodded slightly before heading up to the counter to order something, probably something with a lot of caffeine judging by the time of year. He practically ran on caffeine while taking exams.

Kit looked back at his study guide. Now, it seemed even less important. Across from him, Will had returned to pull his laptop out and set it on the table next to his phone and under his bike helmet. Water drops stuck to it, and Kit lifted it off of his computer, and he noticed that it was smooth and clean. He was still frowning at it when Will came back and sat down.

“Thanks,” Will said, taking the helmet from Kit and setting it under the table.

His eyes flicked up from the computer to Will. “What happened to your sticker?”

“Hm?”

“The sticker I gave you, the pride one.”

“Oh,” Will ran his hand over the sticker-free computer, “it got wet and wrinkled so I had to peel it off.”

Kit didn’t believe him, but something in Will’s voice stopped him from pushing forward. Whatever it was, reminded him of the shadows under Will’s eyes that said he wasn’t sleeping, to the futility of constantly pushing his curls out of his face. The tightness in his voice was careful control that left his words with clean edges and no feeling.

“That’s too bad,” Kit said. That was the right, proper thing to say that wouldn’t push a worn down Will to further extremes.

Will hummed in nebulous agreement over the lip of his mug. He pulled notebooks and pens out of his backpack and opened them, starting to study for some upcoming exam with laser-like focus. Kit had no clue what it was based off the scrawl of writing in front of him. If Will could work, then so could Kit, and he wasn’t dealing with half of what Will was.

Kit was haunted by the Will he’d said goodbye to in October, and he caught himself trying to keep Will from looking like that again, fragile and raw like the sharp edges of broken glass.

“Will?” he asked. He had to ask. Friends—that word didn’t sit right on his tongue—looked after each other, and he had to try, even if his attempts at comfort were as clumsy as fingers frozen stiff, even if in his bones, he knew he wasn’t made for this.

“What is it?”

Kit chewed on the inside of his cheek. “How are you? Really.”

“I’m fine, just trying to keep a lid on everything, you know,” Will said, and he smiled blandly at Kit. It didn’t reach his eyes.

_But I don_ _’t know. I can only imagine what you’re going through, and even that doesn’t render understanding._

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kit felt like he was walking across ice towards Will. One wrong step and they’d both be plummeting down, down, down.

“I’m fine, Kit. Thanks for asking.”

Kit sat back in his chair and tugged his laptop closer. “Of course, that’s what friends are for.”

He didn’t look up even as he felt Will’s gaze on him. He couldn’t bring himself to meet it and let Will read him. That look and this feeling were familiar to Kit, and this wasn’t the first time he’d hid from Will. Wasn’t the first time he had something to hide.

He’d missed Will. Kit knew that much, but some impulse stopped him from saying it out loud. Another impulse—or maybe the same one—kept him from watching Will for too long.

All the sides to Will Shakespeare he’d seen, he hadn’t seen this one. He’d seen Will in the morning with sleep mussed hair and bare feet, wearing an easy smile and wrinkled clothes from the day before. Will with a hat pulled over his curls and his sleeves tucked over his knuckles. Will with ink stained fingers and saying so many words that Kit wanted to stay and listen for hours. Will with a frown etched across his brow and enough tension in his body to shatter glass. He knew those sides of Will, but he didn’t know this precise, dull Will who oozed tepid reassurance rather than curiosity, who was so different from the Will he know that Kit felt like he was sitting across from a stranger. The wrongness of it all was like watching a catastrophe behind plate glass and hearing nothing, being able to _do_ nothing. Watching felt like an intrusion, like he shouldn’t look too closely.

Kit wanted to look at him, really look at him. If he had, he’d see the harsh set of Will’s jaw, the gravity in his eyes, the new, heavy silver ring on his right hand, and how, for once, his fingers weren’t ink stained. But looking would be an intrusion. Worse, it wasn’t allowed. If he looked, then Will would retreat again, and he’d once again be a blue-eyed shade.

Orpheus had known how to reach Eurydice. He’d played a song so beautiful that he’d been able to charm even Hades into letting her return to life. But Kit? He had no clue how to reach Will who sat across from him at a perfectly normal table at a perfectly normal coffee shop. No endless fields of poplar trees, no hooded ferry men, no three-headed dogs, and he still couldn’t reach Will. The pain he’d seen in October had become deep cracks as if he was holding himself together through sheer determination to keep going.

And Kit had no idea how to reach through that, not without creating more cracks, more fractures and breaks that would do more harm than good. He might be able to break through Will’s mild demeanor, but what would he find underneath? And would Will be able to pull himself back together afterward?

No, Kit wouldn’t cause him more pain, not if he could help it.

 

 

**Scene 2**

10:15am

_hey is it ok if i bring anne with tonight?_

His phone dinged, and Kit reached blindly for his phone. The message from Will wormed its way slowly into his brain. He wasn’t awake enough to process what it meant past the obvious so he typed a quick response and rolled over and went to sleep.

_It would be fine_. What did he care if Will brought his girlfriend? That’s what couples did so why should he care?

After that thought, sleep didn’t come as easily as he wished it would.

 

8:38pm

_sorry won_ _’t be able to make it tonight wasp xo_

Kit read the message from Emerson over again before tossing his phone aside. As it got closer and closer to when the party was supposed to start, he’d started to think that Emerson wasn’t going to back out of this one, but that had been a fool’s hope. Why would this time be any different? Because it was New Year’s Eve? What a silly reason to pin his hopes on.

“Everything okay?” Emilia asked, coming back into the room with champagne for the toast.

“Stellar,” Kit said dully and continued setting cups out on the counter. He didn’t look up as he felt Emilia lean next to him.

“What’s the matter?”

Kit didn’t look at her. He heard in her voice the patience that she was willing to wait until he told her whatever was on his mind, but she didn’t need to hear this. He didn’t want her looking at him like he was some lovelorn teenager. He didn’t want her pity.

So he smirked and stood up straight. “Only that I’m going to be the best dressed at this party, and no one else will be able to hold a candle to me.”

Emilia rolled her eyes. “For a minute there, I thought something was _actually_ wrong.”

Kit laughed as he walked away, the topic avoided.

 

11:46pm

The party was going well by all objective measures. People were mingling. There was a rowdy drinking game being played at his dining room table. The lighting set the mood, but wasn’t too dark to be an obstacle. There was more alcohol lined up on his counter than he knew what to do with in one night.

It was a great party all around, the only kind he knew how to throw.

And yet, Kit stood against the kitchen counter nursing his glass of wine and watching everyone else mingle and laugh.

“You’ve been in a sour mood all night,” Emilia said, coming up next to him. She wore a gold glitter headband with NYE sticking out of the top of it like sun rays, and when her pink sequined dress caught the light, it threw reflections across her brown skin. They’d both agreed on sequins, but Kit’s dark purple with skulls toed the line between cheer and gloom.

“I guess I’m not drunk enough,” he quipped, inclining his wine glass towards her.

She hopped up onto the counter. “You could’ve picked something a little more festive. Sequins are supposed to be fun.”

“It’s glam macabre. I have a reputation to uphold.”

Emilia laughed. “That doesn’t mean you have to sulk.”

“I’m not sulking,” he said, but he was absolutely not convincing, not even to an inebriated Emilia.

“Yes, you are. Is it because Will is here with Anne? You’ve been watching him all night.”

Kit froze against the counter and glared at her. She blinked innocently back at him. Her gold eyeshadow matched her headband.

“I’ve been watching everyone all night,” he evaded. “I endeavor to be a good host.”

Emilia hopped down off the counter and started filling her glass with champagne. She sighed, “I’m not sober enough to deal with this, but we’re not done talking about this.”

“Okay,” Kit allowed as she gave him a look, squeezed his hand, and went to talk to someone across the room. Kit stayed where he was and sipped his wine.

Even intoxicated, Emilia had hit the point a little too well. Was he _that_ transparent? If so, he’d have to be more careful because Will couldn’t know. He wasn’t going to add one more worry to to the semester Will was having.

Now that he was thinking about him, Kit gave up trying to avoid the subject, and his eyes found Will easily across the room, sitting next to Anne on the couch. They’d found their own little moment in the party, and Kit hated the jealousy that swirled in his belly, another reminder that Will wasn’t his, not like that. Will had his arm around Anne’s shoulders, and she was laughing at something he’d said. It would’ve been sweet if Will’s expression wasn’t so pained. He looked _relieved_ that she had laughed, and Kit didn’t understand it. Were they not happy? Were they still having problems? He watched as Will leaned towards Anne and whispered something in her ear. She nodded slightly and handed him her cup. In the next moment, Will was up and heading straight for Kit.

“Hey,” Will said. He placed the two cups on the counter and reached for the champagne. Kit glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight.

“Hi,” Kit said. He could remember the last time Will had been in his apartment for a party. The memory floated through his mind. Touching Will’s skin, Will holding him closer than he ever would have dared, and the regret in his eyes when Kit had taken him back to Richard and Alice. Then a more recent memory, sitting next to Will on the same couch where he and Anne sat and leaning towards him, sure that he was going to finally kiss Will…

Then the memory fractured like glass as Will spoke.

“Anne says she’s having a really good time.”

Kit stared at him, trying to reassemble his thoughts. Will wasn’t his to think about like that, and as he glanced over at Anne, the guilt washed over him to see to whom Will’s blue eyes really belonged. It hadn’t bothered him till now how he’d lingered in Will’s gaze, desired his company and attention, but seeing the two of them together now, he understood how Will could have equated him with Alice all those months ago.

“Glad to hear it,” he heard himself say.

Will glanced over his shoulder then back at Kit. “I should go. The ball is about to drop.”

“Don’t let me keep you, Shakespeare.”

Will held Kit’s eyes for another second before leaving, and as he did, it felt like he took all the air in Kit’s lungs with him.

His heart thudded painfully in his chest and he looked away. He was fine. He was fine. This was _fine_. This was how things were supposed to be. Will with Anne, and Kit with Emerson. This is how their lives worked. He and Will existed for each other as friends and nothing more. The sooner he convinced himself of that—and convinced himself that that was enough—the easier everything would be.

 

11:59pm

Ten…nine…eight…seven.

Kit wasn’t counting down to the new year. The party wasn’t holding his interest, but since it was in his apartment, he couldn’t very well leave.

“To the new year.” Emilia raised her glass to his.

Six…five…four.

“Something like that,” Kit muttered. His eyes caught on Will as he scanned the room.

Three…two…one!

Couples kissed everywhere.

“Fuck men,” Kit muttered, feeling slighted. He thought he’d spoken too low for Emilia to hear him.

“I would never,” she said, and toasted his glass.

Kit laughed despite his mood and took a drink of champagne too. Emerson wasn’t here, and Tommy had gone home for the holidays. He’d also ended things between them, and Kit couldn’t blame him. The fact that he wasn’t broken up over him had its own meaning that this was for the best.

His eyes landed on Will and Anne again who had broken apart, and the pained expression was still on Will’s face as thumbs stroked Anne’s cheeks, their foreheads pressed close together. He was frowning in extreme concentration with his eyes closed like he was wishing or even praying. And when he opened his eyes, he looked afraid as if he would lose her if he looked away, even as Anne kissed him.

Kit watched as Richard pulled Will’s attention away from Anne. Both of Will’s hands held one of Anne’s like she was his anchor, keeping him grounded and tethered. Tethered to what? To her? Kit didn’t know, but the way Anne’s expression crumpled when Will wouldn’t see told him that she knew.


	6. Act V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is really sad, and I am so sorry for that.
> 
> Also, most of the content warning tags are relevant to this chapter. This is a warning for minor character death, drug addiction, grief/mourning, alcohol, drug overdose, mild violence, and police violence (Robert Southwell stans do not interact). That last one is just because Southwell didn't get what he deserved in canon so I had to fix it.
> 
> I know I said I was going to post weekly, but I got bored and impatient.

**Scene 1**

Kit was alone in his apartment with a list of monologues pulled up on his laptop. He had to choose one for reauditions, but he’d been putting it off. It was April. He had less than a month till the reaudition that fell amongst his other final exams and papers. It was always the most lovely time of year.

His phone rang. He glanced at Emerson’s name lit up on the screen and then away back at his computer. It continued to buzz against the table, but Kit ignored it. _Let it ring_. A small part of him wanted to answer it and act like nothing was wrong, but everything was wrong. Emerson had been acting strangely, flaking on plans more than usual. There was a distance when they were together, and Kit didn’t see a bridge. He always had something to say, but he never seemed to find the right words for what to say to reach Emerson. For that, he was annoyed with himself, and he was annoyed with Emerson. It felt like neither of them were trying to fix their relationship that Kit felt sure was hurtling towards some inevitable end. He should’ve known it would be Emerson’s graduation.

The voice mail notification appeared on his screen, and his attention seemed to focus entirely on it. In the silence, his heartbeats hammered out the seconds.

When the screen went dark, Kit reached to turn it on again. He unlocked his phone, but he didn’t hit dial to hear the message. He was supposed to be mad right? And he was busy? He needed to pass this year, and reauditions would wait for no one.

He tried to ignore how hitting the green button felt like surrender.

The message played, and Kit’s blood ran cold.

“Wasp, I…I need you. I can’t do this, Wasp. I—I messed up. I love you, Wasp. I—”

The message ended.

Kit’s heart stopped. His blood stopped. Everything stopped, ground to a screeching halt, then restarted, his world started again. In a second, he was out of his chair and lurching towards the door. Running, taking the stairs two at a time as he ran towards Emerson.

He punched the emergency number into his phone as he ran. _Faster. He had to get there._ Kit sprinted down sidewalks and past people whose heads spun to watch him even as he was passing them. He just had to get to Emerson. If he could just run fast enough…

When he got there, he pounded on Emerson’s door. “Emerson! Barrett Emerson!” Kit felt frantically at his pockets, but he didn’t have his fucking keys. The _one time_ he needed his fucking key, and he didn’t have them.

“Emerson, babe, you have to let me in. I don’t have my key.” He pounded on the door some more, but there was still no answer. _Oh god oh god oh god please, please just let him be alright._

There was one option left to him, and Kit backed up before throwing his shoulder against the door.

Nothing happened.

He tried again. And again. With his shoulder, his foot. Until splinters flew and the door burst open.

It took him a moment to find Emerson and find what was wrong. The apartment looked so normal. Papers and sources from Emerson’s thesis floated around the room. The blinds had been shut as they were every night. If he didn’t know that something was horribly wrong, he’d have no reason to panic upon just seeing the room.

As he moved farther into the room, he saw Emerson lying on the couch, unconscious with his left sleeve pushed above his elbow. There was a needle on the floor next to him where it had fallen.

“Please, please wake up. Don’t leave me, not yet. Another day, another hour. _Please._ ” Kit raised his eyes to the ceiling, “ _Please._ ” But who was he appealing to? There was no one up there who could save Emerson. Was he appealing to Emerson? His eyes were closed and his face slack. Could he even hear Kit?

The paramedics arrived, streaming through the still open door, and Kit stumbled back as they took over. He couldn’t think, but some relief managed to pierce through the panic. They would save him. They could, they would. 

They were in the apartment, then the hallway, the street, the ambulance. They would save him. They knew what to do. They could do what Kit couldn’t.

The beeping of a monitor stopped and was replaced by one, drawn out sound. Eyes glanced quickly at each other as hands better than his worked to revive his king. When Emerson coded in the ambulance, Kit felt his world shudder to a stop again. The moments where Emerson’s heart didn’t beat unfurled their leathery wings like a monster out of his nightmares, one that only grew as the seconds ticked on. Kit felt the monster grow as he watched, helpless to fight it off.

Then the monitor beeped again. The long singular note broke, and Emerson was alive. Winged death receded back into the shadows.

They arrived at the hospital. The ambulance came to a stop and a wave of cold overtook Kit. His hands were shaking and cold. The tremors spread through his body, rattling him. Kit’s eyes followed Emerson as he was wheeled through a set of doors and out of sight. He would be fine. They were in the hospital now. He would live. Kit barely registered that someone was speaking to him, let alone that the officer was trying to get his attention.

“Sir? _Sir,_ I’m Officer Southwell. Can you answer a few questions for me?”

Kit blinked. His hands were still shaking so he flattened them against his jeans. They just wouldn’t stop shaking. “Yes? I—”

“Can you tell me your name?” The cop’s voice was sharp and clear, falling into clean lines that Kit found unbelievable. Nothing about this was neat.

“Kit—I mean, Christopher Marlowe.” There was a clock on the wall. Time ticked on, and Kit kept breathing, telling himself that this was good. If he didn’t hear anything immediately, then that meant Emerson was still breathing, still fighting to stay alive.

“How do you know the victim?”

_Victim?_ Kit looked at him. He spoke about Emerson as if he were already dead. “He’s my partner.”

“And it was you who found the body?”

_The body?_

“He’s not dead,” Kit said. Frustration and anger were starting to burn through the haze of panic.

“Mm,” the cop made an indifferent sound but nodded slightly. “Little old for you, wasn’t he?”

Kit started. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“He ever try to get you mixed up in all this drug stuff?” The cop’s flat eyes just watched Kit, and the indifference on his face felt like a slap.

“No! What the fuck? I didn’t even know he’d relapsed.” His voice was rising. Over Southwell’s shoulder, Kit saw a nurse glance at them, her hands full of folders. He tried to calm down, crossing his arms over his chest. _Just breathe. He_ _’s still alive. He’s in good hands now. He will live._

The questions kept coming, and Kit felt less and less like he was speaking to a human being. “You didn’t know your boyfriend was on heroin?”

“We don’t…we don’t see each other that much during the semester. I don’t live with him.” The reminder drained Kit’s voice. His anger shrunk, huddled next to his fear. For the moment, it was gone, and he was just afraid again. What if hoping wasn’t enough? Should he pray again? Pray to whichever and whatever god he could think of? He only needed one of them.

“So then what were you doing there?”

“Seeing my fucking partner.” Kit’s emotions spun wildly again, rearing their burning head. “What kind of question is that?”

“Calm down, this is just a conversation. There’s no need to be hostile.”

“No _need_ to be hostile? My partner is in there fighting for his life and you can’t seem to decide whether I’m being taken advantage of or just complicit in his drug habit!”

The doors opened. A nurse came out and walked towards Kit. _This is it._

“Mr. Marlowe?”

“Yes.” Kit felt like he couldn’t breathe.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news. Mr. Emerson coded again. There was no way to save him. I’m so sorry.”

His world bent around her words, bending, crumpling, then falling. “No…”

“Well, I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you a few more questions down at the station. Now that the victim’s died—” The same indifference sat in his voice.

His world reeled violently. “He wasn’t just a fucking victim!” Kit’s fist connected with the cop’s smug face, and there wasn’t even time to enjoy the shock in his slackened expression before the world tilted again and he was forced to the ground. His cheek pressed against the tile floor while his arms were held painfully tight behind him. Pain flared in his bruised shoulder, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t move.

Another car ride. His shoulder still hurt. The world still hadn’t righted itself, and he wasn’t sure it would.

The car doors opened. A rough hand grabbed his arm and marched him down a hallway. They turned right somewhere, but Kit couldn’t really care. His shoulder still ached, and his face was starting to hurt too. As it stood, none of those things really mattered.

Another hallway, another room with bright lights and people watching him. Kit felt their stares, but again, did they really matter?  Metal clinked and freed his wrists.

A barred door slid open, and then the door closed behind him. Kit walked over to the bench along the back of the cell and sank onto it.

 

He didn’t sleep much that night. Time passed so much slower when he had to be conscious for all of it. Kit opened his eyes, not to the light, but to the grating slide of metal.

“The nurse from the hospital gave a statement this morning. She said Officer Southwell was out of line, and she explained the…” Kit heard the break in her words as surely as he felt the one in his chest, “extenuating circumstances. We’re letting you go this time. I’m sorry for your loss.”

He felt himself nodding as he moved towards the phone against the wall. Loss didn’t seem to fit right. Loss was what happened when you left your notebook in a classroom or sunglasses in a public restroom. Loss? He hadn’t lost Emerson. Emerson was _dead_ , stolen from Kit’s life like air from his lungs, his heart from his chest. _Lost,_ taken away by chemicals, vicious addiction, and Kit’s own inability to swallow his pride and answer his damn phone. He hadn’t been left behind, forgotten, hadn’t fallen off the edge of the world. He’d been cut out from it, and Kit could feel the void left in his place, the chasm that grew in his chest and would swallow him whole.

Emerson was lost to _him_.

_Who was he supposed to call?_ Kit thought rather distantly of his parents who could be anywhere in the world right now. They weren’t really an option even as he considered them, and he picked up the phone. He punched in a number, hoping dully for an answer.

“Hello?”

Something close to relief. “Will?”

“Kit? Where are you? What is this number?” The confusion in his voice dropped away as he spoke faster.

“Will, I need you to pick me up.” He read out the station number and address from a card that was handed to him. 

Shock. “You’re in jail?!”

“Just for the night. I punched a cop.”

“You punched a _cop_?! Oh my god, Kit.”

“Will, I—”

“Listen, Kit, my mom’s a judge. I can call her. She’ll know what to do, don’t worry about—” Will, always trying to find a solution, but some things didn’t have answers and solutions. Some things just were.

“I don’t need your fancy family connections, William. I just need a ride.”

Will was silent on the other end for long enough that Kit started to regret his words.

“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

Kit ended the call.

His belongings were returned to him—his phone, a stick of gum, his wallet. Light entered the station through covered windows, and when he got outside, he was relieved to see that it was overcast. He didn’t think he could deal with anything brighter today.

Kit didn’t see Will at first.

“Kit, hey.”

His eyes had passed right over Will. He was wearing a suit. The same suit Kit had handed to him back in October.

“Hey, are you okay?” Will’s voice was difficult to focus on through the haze of exhaustion.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“Come on, let’s get you home,” Will said. Kit felt a hand flutter against his arm as he got into the car. His shoulder still hurt, his face hurt, and his chest ached, right in the center and a little to the left.

Kit closed his eyes, the motion of the car calming him as they pulled away from the station.

When he opened his eyes. Will was driving, frowning slightly as he navigated through morning traffic.

“I didn’t know you could drive,” Kit said.

Will’s frown deepened. “Why does everyone think I can’t drive? I can drive just fine.”

“Sorry.” His voice was faint, and he looked away.

“No, Kit, it’s,” Will sighed, “it’s not that.”

_Sorry. Sorry for making you do this. Sorry. I_ _’m sorry._ He closed his eyes again. They kept moving, and he let himself sink into his fatigue. Will would see him home.

He felt Will turn the engine off, and he cracked his eyes open to see his familiar apartment building.

“So, can you tell me what happened?” Will’s voice was feather soft.

And Kit just stared at him for a moment. Blue eyes held him gently, and Kit felt an intense need to get out of the car. _How could he possibly explain?_ In Will’s eyes, Kit saw something that reminded him of that October morning. Maybe it was the suit. Or maybe it was both. Whatever it was, he couldn’t say.

“Thanks for picking me up, Will.” He leaned over and kissed Will’s cheek. It was the closest thing to an explanation he could give Will. _I want to, but I can_ _’t. I can’t._

He just had to get upstairs.

“Kit…”

He looked back where Will was hanging out of the window of the car. If Kit had been in any mood to read Will, he would have seen every feeling laid bare, but as it was, he didn’t.

“Good bye, Will.”

 

 

**Scene 2**

Will sat in his apartment, alone, studying. After this round of finals, he’d be halfway done with college. The thought was both exciting and alarming. What was supposed to come next?

His phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Come and get your not-boyfriend boyfriend,” Richard said without preamble. Will winced a little, but he didn’t have time to feel guilty about it as he scrambled to write down the address Richard rattled off. “And hurry, he looks pretty bad.”

Richard hung up without another word, and the quiet of his apartment overtook him again. Was he really doing this? Was he really going to run to wherever Kit needed him? _Even when he won_ _’t tell me what’s going on?_

It wasn’t really a question. He grabbed his keys and his phone and headed for the door.

 

It was quicker to walk. His feet carried him to a house near campus. Light poured out of the windows, and Will could hear the music before he reached the front door. He took a deep breath and walked up the steps. There were a couple guys posted there, but Richard came out and pulled him through before he could say anything.

“Where is he?” Will asked.

Richard looked around, scanning the crowd in the low light. “He was here a minute ago, but I lost sight of him. He seems really fucked up, Will.”

Will’s heart thudded in his chest as he too looked around for a cutting flash of blue, blond hair that caught the light, listening for a laugh full of daring. Bodies pressed against him as he moved through the crowd, looking for Kit. He tried to breathe deeply because it was probably fine—Kit would be fine—but his chest was tight like he couldn’t get enough air.

“I just saw him,” Richard shouted over the music.

Both of them turned when they heard a door slam open.

“Back door,” Richard was closer and grabbed Will’s arm, pulling him through the crowd as they made for the back door. Over the crowd, Will caught a glimpse of someone getting up from the ground.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

Will’s throat constricted. He knew that voice. He pushed the rest of the way through the crowd till he was standing at the top of set of steps into a backyard of concrete slabs.

Kit stood in the center of a ring of people with his arms spread. Kit with blood running down his face and from his lip. Kit with bloody knuckles. Kit laughing like he wanted to die. Will flinched when someone stepped forward and punched Kit. He didn’t try to avoid it. Seeing Kit bloodied and swaying on his feet scared Will, but it was worse seeing him not even try to save himself.

He was moving again. Will pushed through into the ring of people as the guy who had punched Kit pulled him up by the back of his shirt. He’d never been in a fight before, but he grabbed the guy’s other arm before he could hit Kit again. Kit fell to the ground and pushed himself to his knees, wheezing.

“Get the fuck off!” Will caught an elbow on his cheek and felt pain radiate across his face. He expected to hit the concrete, but instead he stumbled back into someone.

“I got this, just get him out of here.” Richard’s voice was low in Will’s ear as he gave him a shove towards Kit who had staggered back to his feet.

“We’re leaving,” Will said, pulling Kit’s arm over his shoulders. He wrapped his arm around Kit’s waist and steered them back inside and towards the front door. He realized Kit’s shirt was soaked, and up close, he smelled like cheap beer.

“What are you doing here, William? Out for,” he coughed, “a little vice and mayhem?”

_I_ _’m here for you, idiot_ , but of course he didn’t say that.

“We’re leaving,” Will repeated stiffly. The upside of dragging a bloodied Kit through the house were that people got out of his way as soon as they caught sight of them. Once out, Will didn’t slow down, and Kit’s shoes kept catching on the sidewalk as he struggled to keep up. Will’s heart was still pounding, but it had nothing to do with Kit draped over him.

Vice and Mayhem. Those really were Kit’s god and altar weren’t they?

“I’m fine, Will,” Kit muttered.

Will tightened his grip on him. “What did you say?”

“I said, I’m fine. Let me go.”

“You’re not fine. You’re—” _You_ _’re bleeding and hurt. Your blood is on my hands, and I can’t make it stop. Someone has to care about you._

“I’m what, Will Shakespeare?” Something about Kit’s voice didn’t sound right to Will.

He needed to calm down. “You’re not fine. You’re bleeding and cut up like an extra in a horror movie. You might have a concussion. You’re coming home with me.” He remembered the last time he’d seen Kit with a bruised face, and he wasn’t going to let Kit go home by himself like that again.

They’d stopped now, and he could properly see Kit, but there was hardly any blue in his glassy eyes. His pupils were blown so wide that Will could see himself reflected there.

“Damn it, Kit, what did you _take_? You’re high.”

“What do you care?”

Will shook his head. “What do _I_ care,” he repeated. _Am I not allowed to care about you?_

They were standing on a street corner that Will recognized. They weren’t far from his apartment, and he continued on.

“I live _that_ way,” Kit pointed behind them and to the right.

“Shut up, you idiot. You’re staying with me.”

Kit surprised him by saying, “Didn’t think you cared enough to do it a second time.”

He couldn’t mean what Will thought he meant. “Do what a second time?”

“Come and get me.”

Will tensed and his steps faltered before he remembered to keep walking. So it was on both of their minds. He glanced at Kit out of the corner of his eye. His arm was still around Will’s shoulders, but he seemed to be walking mostly on his own.

“You cut your hair,” Will said, trying for something easy, but he was met only with silence. It didn’t reach his shoulders anymore, and the longest pieces just grazed his chin.

Kit didn’t say anything else so Will didn’t try again until they reached his apartment.

When they got upstairs, Will deposited Kit on the bed and knelt in front of him, grabbing whatever shirt was closest at hand.

“Give me your shirt.”

Kit flopped back onto Will’s bed, not answering him.

“Come on, Kit. Your covered in blood and beer,” Will tried again.

“If you want to take my clothes off, I’m not stopping you.”

Will sighed, “Fine.” With a precision he’d learned from wrestling his younger siblings into and out of clothes, he pulled Kit’s shirt over his head. As he reached for the clean one, his eyes fell on Kit’s chest. A bruise was already starting to form on his side where he’d been hit or kicked. Kit was reaching for him, but he flinched as Will’s fingers drifted across the bruise.

“Your hands are cold.”

Will stood up and to give himself some space. “I’m getting some ice. Put this on.” He tossed the shirt to Kit, turning away before his eyes and fingers could wander across the rest of Kit’s skin. He wouldn’t do this.

When he came back with ice in hand, Kit was lying back on his bed wearing the blue shirt Will had given him. He was staring at the ceiling without blinking.

“Hold this on your ribs, and stay awake,” Will said, but as he looked at Kit laying there, the tight knot of worry he’d been carrying around tonight eased, “please. Please stay awake.”

“I’m fine, Will. You don’t need to do this.” Kit’s voice came from his bed, and it was clearer. The words weren’t slurred, and the knot of worry loosened a little more.

Will left to get washcloths and antiseptic to clean Kit’s wounds and the emergency first aid under his bathroom sink. He could still see Kit out of the corner of his eye from his bathroom. Will didn’t want to let him out of his sight. His pulse sped up at the thought.

“Can you sit up?” He asked. He knelt in front of the edge of his bed where Kit lay.

Kit did. Will had a hand around his shoulder to keep him upright. He tried to be gentle. He knew about the bruise, but he didn’t know if there were others he hadn’t seen. Kit’s eyes were closed, and he tipped forward till his head rested between Will’s shoulder and neck. He tried to pull back to clean the cuts on Kit’s face.

“Kit, you’re burning up.”

“Don’t worry about me, Will,” Kit said. Will caught sight of his eyes, and his own reflection, but he was glad that Kit was talking. This close, Will could smell smoke and alcohol on Kit. This close, it felt like he was sinking down into deep, dark water. Kit stared blankly back at him, with no anger, no wild challenge, just still, emptiness. _Come back to me, Kit, because I—_

The thought flashed across his mind like lightning, tearing his carefully composed calm into terrified ribbons as he finished the thought.

_Come back to me, Kit, because I need you._

The terror his realization inspired sent his heart pounding. His felt shaky on bended knee like he was going to fall over.

He put his hand behind Kit’s head to ease him back, hoping that Kit wouldn’t feel the tremors. His hair tangled under Will’s fingers. “Kit, come on, love, let me see.”

Kit flinched again, and Will repressed a wince that he’d hurt him. He moved from cleaning the cuts on Kit’s face to cleaning his split knuckles.

It had just slipped out. Will’s heart beat faster because now he realized what he said and how it sounded, but he couldn’t change it now, and worse was that he wouldn’t. He settled for hoping that Kit was out of it enough to have not heard him.

Kit’s hand moved in his, moved so he was holding Will’s hand. _What was Kit doing?_ His other hand reached up to Will’s face, and Will couldn’t look away from his eyes with their too thin ring of blue. It felt like he was falling again.

The slide of Kit’s skin against his own pulled him back to himself, shocked him.

“Kit, what are you—”

Kit kissed him. And the kiss tasted like blood.

Will recoiled like he’d been burned. He fell back onto the floor of his apartment, wiping his hand across his mouth. It came away red with Kit’s blood.

“What the _fuck_ was that, Kit? What the hell?” His breath came too fast, and his mind was reeling. He knew that _that_ was the exact opposite of what he should want, but past that he couldn’t think around the fear gripping his heart. Fear at the knowledge that he needed Kit.

The world had shifted, rearranged itself, and he was only realizing it now. Will didn’t know when it had happened, but his world had reoriented itself around the person in front of him, and here was another truth that he was going to tuck close to his heart, behind bone and muscle, where no one would know or see. He _needed_ Kit, needed him in that all-encompassing way the poets wrote about.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. “Nevermind, you’re…you’re not yourself, and I’m still with Anne. You know I don’t feel that way about you.”

The look Kit pinned him with stole the breath from his lungs. The rings of blue in Kit’s eyes were shards of hail, and Will was caught in the storm.

When he spoke, his voice was cold like icy rain. “You can turn me down all you like, Shakespeare, but don’t keep pretending you’re the golden boy. I know what happened with Alice, and I know what you wanted to happen with me. You’ve wanted me since the day we met, and denying it doesn’t make you a saint. It just makes you a liar.”

_He_ _’s not himself. He’s high. He’s drunk. He doesn’t mean this._

The words hurt at the core of his being, but Kit wasn’t himself. He wasn’t thinking right. He’d never say this if he was sober. Still, Will couldn’t hold onto everything, couldn’t keep it all locked behind his teeth.

“I’m not the one trying to martyr myself,” he snapped. He stood up, taking the first aid supplies with him where he set them on the table. “And you have a final tomorrow, Kit. What the fuck are you doing, getting like this?”

“Whatever the fuck I want! What are you doing, William?” Kit marched towards him.

Will grasped for words. “What—what am I…What are you—”

Kit was inches away from him. “You’re so fucking scared of losing something you don’t even want that you won’t grab the things you do. Do you think _Anne_ doesn’t know she’s your god damn _safety net_? The pretty girl from the small town you can fall back on if the big city gets to be too much for you? You’re a fucking _coward_ , William Shakespeare! You’re lying to everyone about who you are!”

“You don’t get to tell me how or when to come out to people, Kit!” _That_ _’s mine._ Will felt his face grow hot, but he couldn’t do anything about it now. Kit’s onslaught of words landed true. When had they not?

Kit laughed in disbelief, and the landslide continued.

“That’s not even what this is about. You act like you’re so fucking confident, but you’re living this ridiculous double life. The girl, the lies, the god damn _promise ring_ ,” as if to shield himself, Will tucked his left hand behind his leg. “That isn’t you! Fuck, you’re still majoring in something you hate to please your dad. He’s dead, Will. He’s never going to approve of you!” Kit’s face twisted nastily at the end. His chest was heaving.

Will fell back onto a chair like his legs had been knocked out from under him. He wasn’t going to fall for Kit’s bait. He wasn’t _himself. He wouldn_ _’t do this to me._ _To me._

“No. I’m not doing this. We can talk about this when you’re sober.” He got up again and walked away, needing space. Kit on a normal day was magnetic, intoxicating, but now he was a hurricane, an inferno.

“Sure, run away and hide, hide away all those ugly little feelings you can’t stand to let anyone see. Wouldn’t want anyone to see William Shakespeare in anything but the light from his golden halo,” he sneered. Will felt Kit pull him around to face him. “Well, I’ve seen it, Will, and you can’t hide shit from _me_.”

“Fuck you, Kit,” Will shook him off. “I’m not hiding! I—”

“Of course you are! You’re hiding everything from everyone, just like you always have. You—”

“I’m not _hiding_!” Will shouted. “And I’m not running. I—”

“Then what about Alice? You ran when shit got too real and pushed her away. You’re always running from Anne, but guess what, you don’t get to do that with _me_. You can’t push _me_ aside, Shakespeare. You can’t push me aside because you’re too scared to let me in, you coward!”

Will felt something break in him, break into dust and catch fire, burning away any mercy he still had. “I pushed Alice away? Look who’s fucking talking, _Kit._ You don’t get to shit on everyone else’s lives just because your boyfriend dumped you.”

“Don’t—”

But Will wouldn’t stop now. He’d tried. He’d _tried_ to keep it together, to hold back, but wasn’t that the problem, according to Kit? That he couldn’t be honest with himself or anyone else? How would Kit like it if Will was finally honest with him.

“Oh poor, little Kit Marlowe got his heart broken, so now he’s gone off the fucking rails, and it’s everybody else’s problem but his! Grow the fuck up, Kit. Grow the fuck up and be serious. You got dumped. Get over it!”

Cruel satisfaction coursed through Will at the look of blank dread in Kit’s eyes. He just stared at Will, speechless for the first time since he’d started yelling, and Will was _glad of it._

Kit shook his head slightly then stormed past Will. He expected Kit to slam into him, clip him on the shoulder, but all he felt was a faint stirring of the air. All he heard was the slam of his apartment door.

The impulse that had sent him out in the middle of the night to find Kit in the first place told him to go after Kit again, but he wouldn’t. Instead, Will turned back to his apartment.  Kit’s filthy shirt lay on the floor where he had tossed it aside. There were blood smears on his sheets from Kit’s wounds, and Will started tearing the sheets off of the mattress and tossing them aside too.

 

**Scene 3**

Kit stumbled away from Will’s apartment. The argument had sobered him up some, but it was all relative wasn’t it?

Kit didn’t keep track of where he was going. The streets that had looked so familiar earlier didn’t register to him now.

Eventually he ended up at a park, far from home. His body hurt. His heart ached, and that ache bubbled up and turned into tears. He knew that he couldn’t stay here, but he didn’t see how he was supposed to get home. The feeling that he was set adrift settled over him like a haze even as he reached for his phone and called for help.

“Kit, it’s the middle of the night.”

“Something happened with Will. I—” he sobbed. _And Emerson_ _’s dead. He’s gone. He’s dead. He’s dead._

“Kit!”

“I need you to come and get me.”

“Where are you? Can you tell me where you are?”

“I’m,” Kit looked around. “I’m at Mulberry Park I think. I’m by the gate.”

“Which one? North or east?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“It’s fine, just don’t hang up. I’m coming.”

His hand fell into his lap, the call still open on his phone. He looked up at the black sky. Thin clouds scudded across looking like wisps of smoke carried on the wind.

His eyes started to sting, and he squeezed them shut. His face grew hot. His shoulders started to shake, and Kit cried.

His anger had faded quicker than he would’ve thought possible. In it’s place, a chill had settled over him, like he’d moved too far away from the fire, but he had no intention of seeking that warmth again. It was too far away, uphill, out of reach. Moreover, he didn’t want to shelter in his anger. It would just make everything worse, and he could ruin everything without leaning into anger and rage. Hadn’t the fight just proved that?

Kit wiped his hand across his eyes, and he caught sight of the clean wounds on the back of his hand. He’d been so careful, watching what he said, not pressing where he found pain, trying too hard to keep everything together. And what had that achieved?

Emerson was dead. The rubble of whatever he had with Will lay in a trail behind him. Was this when people prayed? When they were at their lowest and couldn’t see a way forward?

Alternatively, why did people pray when there was no one to listen? No one to save them, no one to save their loved ones. _No one to save Emerson._

Kit felt tears spill onto his cheeks as headlights flared up next to him. He threw an arm up over his eyes, but then, what did it matter?

“Kit!”

Out of the light, a figure moved towards him, and it was Emilia. “Kit, are you okay? What happened?” She was worried. Her hands fluttered over his arms, checking him over, and he wanted to tell her that the cuts and scrapes didn’t mean anything. He’d earned them.

“It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.”

“No, it’s not, but come on, let’s get you home.”

Kit let himself be pulled to his feet. A few steps, the light dimmed, and he was sitting in the front seat of her car. He closed his eyes as Emilia pulled away from the park.

“What happened to you? You said you were okay.”

_What happened?_ How many times had he dodged that question? How many more times had he straight lied rather than tell them the truth? And where were those walls now with their defenses against these questions? He couldn’t find them, or he’d run out of ammunition. Did it really matter where they’d gone when they weren’t there to protect him anymore?

He kept his eyes closed. “I got in a fight, and I ruined everything with Will and it’s just…it’s just all my fault.”

“The fight? Kit, love, what’s your fault? What happened?”

_Kit, come on, love, let me see._

He heard Will’s words over again, and they came back crystal clear to him even when most of tonight was a blank or at best, a haze.

_Will_ _…_

The flood of his sins flowed out of him. “Emerson’s dead. He died from an overdose, and it’s my fault and I didn’t tell anyone.”

“What? He’s dead? Oh my god, Kit, we have to call the cops.”

“No. It was last month. He died, and I couldn’t save him. I didn’t tell you or Will or anyone because it’s my fault, Emilia. It’s my fault.”

“Kit, it’s not your fault.”

“He died because I didn’t save him. I didn’t pick up the phone. If I’d,” his voice broke, “if I’d just answered the phone, those extra minutes could have saved him. I _killed_ him, Emilia.”

“Kit, listen to me,” he would try certainly, “you didn’t kill him. You loved him, you cared for him, you did everything you could to save him—”

“And it wasn’t enough,” he finished.

“Sometimes you can’t _be_ enough, Kit. Sometimes your best isn’t going to be good enough, but that doesn’t make it your fault.”

He might have known she was right, but he could feel her words laying over him, settling on his skin, in his hair, but they didn’t sink in to where he could believe them.

He tilted his head back against the headrest. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“It’s okay, Kit.”

He didn’t say anything else as she drove back to his apartment. Saying nothing had backfired already then speaking had done its own damage. What was he supposed to do?

“Go take a shower and clean up. I’ll make some tea,” she said. Kit listened. It was easier to listen.

Before he was out of range, he heard her phone ring.

“Will, it’s the middle of the night. Actually, it’s 3am, it’s morning.”

Kit froze in the hallway. His hand splayed against the wall for balance.

“He’s fine, no thanks to you.”

He couldn’t see her, but he heard the steel in her voice. His limbs started to work again and he hurried the rest of the way to the bathroom where he shut the door behind him.

 

****

**Scene 4**

He was going home. He was halfway finished with college. The idea didn’t seem real to him. That he could halfway through the best four years of his life, supposedly, and be surrounded by this much wreckage.

To any looking, everything would seem fine. The serenity that laid over his life like gilt over iron unnerved Will to the point that he got a headache from seeing double. A pile of sheets sat at the end of the table with a grey t-shirt sitting on the top. The blood stains were gone. It didn’t smell like beer anymore. _It didn_ _’t even smell like Kit,_ the traitor part of his brain said, and he savagely pushed the thought away. It wasn’t his—Kit wasn’t his—and he had no way of giving it back to Kit. 

He restacked the pile, putting the shirt under a pillow case then turned back to his own packing. It was a mess, mindlessly loading laundry into his suitcase. He’d tried folding everything to give himself something to do to try and drown out Kit’s words that replayed over and over in his mind. He couldn’t stop hearing them. During one of his finals, he’d lost focus only to realize he’d written _it just makes you a liar_ into the middle of his essay on the nature of creativity in Wordsworth.

It still hurt. Reliving what Kit had said to him, and whenever he tried to figure out exactly what hurt so much, his castle of carefully worded assumptions and givens fell like leaves. Because it was Kit. Because Kit wasn’t supposed to use his genius against Will. Because what he’d said was true. Because it was more than true. True was facts, almanacs, dictionaries. Kit’s words were the kind of true that Will felt in his heart of hearts, and some of those truths he kept hidden, safe where no one could use them as knives to flay him open like Kit had.

Because it was Kit. That’s what he kept coming back to, and it was worse to know that he always ended right where he’d began, but that wasn’t all of it was it? The fear had settled mostly, but it was still enough to remind him of the revelation of how vital Kit was to him.

Because it was Kit, because he needed him, because Kit would never need Will the way he needed him.

_You 're lying to everyone about who you are!_

_He 's dead, Will. He’s never going to approve of you._

_I 've seen it, Will, and you can’t hide shit from me._

_You coward._

Will’s hands knotted in the shirt he was holding _Coward._ He wasn’t a coward. He wanted to yell and shout and scream it. To who? To Kit? Kit who wanted nothing to do with him. Kit, who Will had driven away as surely as he had driven Alice away.

_Do you think Anne doesn_ _’t know she’s your god damn safety net? The pretty girl from the small town you can fall back on if the big city gets to be too much for you?_

Isn’t that what he did every summer? Every holiday? Wasn’t that what he was doing now? It would have been too easy to fabricate obligations that would have kept him in the city over the summer break, but he hadn’t done that. He was going home. He was going home to Anne, to his family, to his small town with its familiar patterns and rhythms.

And then, Will forced his hands to let go of the shirt, when it was too stifling being home, he’d come back to the city.

Did all of that make Kit right? And if it was true, was it right that he had said it?

_No._ The open, gaping wound in him cried that Kit had _hurt_ him and was wrong to do so. The hurt wanted him to forget packing, forget his train, and crawl back into his bed and pull the covers over his head.

This new hurt settled alongside the grief over his father’s death. The first was bloody and inflamed. The second was scar tissue and puckered skin. In time, one would come to look like the other, and the pain would change. The pain would still there, but it would be less. Will didn’t know when grief had traded its cut for a blunted edge, but there were days he where he didn’t feel it weighing on his every step. He knew even less how he felt about it.

_You_ _’re lying to everyone about who you are!_

That Kit hadn’t distinguished between lies of omission and forthright lies was a small detail in the portrait of his life. They still hung on him, the things he hadn’t told his dad. The fact that he was still a business major seemed like the smallest of unsaid truths even if it was going to end up shaping his life. He could change what he did with his life, but he couldn’t change who he was.

_You act like you_ _’re so fucking confident, but you’re living this ridiculous double life. The girl, the lies, the god damn promise ring…that isn’t you._

_What do you know Kit? Who are you to judge me when you act like the world is your stage?_ Flouncing through life without a care in the world, not even for himself. He had no idea what Will had gone through this semester. There had been days—there were still days—when he didn’t want to get out of bed. Days he wished that everything would just be a little quieter, a little less, a little easier to handle because he didn’t know how he was going to get through it all. Kit, who ran headfirst into everything, didn’t know what he’d felt.

He pulled the zipper across his bag, tugging roughly when it caught and left his apartment. He had a train to catch, a life to get back to, and Kit didn’t get to judge him for how he handled it when he didn’t and couldn’t understand what it was like.

 

**Scene 5**

Will shut the door to his bedroom behind him. Dread had been pooling in his stomach since Anne had said she needed to talk to him about something. Well, that had worried him, but when he’d asked her if she wanted to stay for dinner, she hadn’t answered one way or the other, then he’d really started to worry. It was like a slow drip from a faucet, dread. It just started slow and small, nothing that really caught your attention until it was a puddle that reflected all of your fears back at you.

She was standing by his window, leaning against the wall. The last bright light of afternoon before the sun started to set streamed in through the window. The light fell on Anne’s hair and illuminated hints of copper and bronze in her brown hair. For fear, Will didn’t say anything.

“Your finals went well?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Will nodded. “I’m sorry I missed your graduation.”

“It’s fine. I was hoping it wouldn’t fall right in the middle of your finals, but,” she shrugged a shoulder, “it wasn’t to be.”

“I should’ve made it though,” Will said. “I could have…I don’t know…”

Anne walked away from his window. “Will, it’s fine, really.”

His shoulders relaxed a little, but the puddle of dread was becoming a pool. This couldn’t be what she wanted to talk about, and for fear again, he didn’t say anything.

She squinted at him a little, a dent forming between her eyebrows, and her fingers brushed over the healing bruise on his cheek bone. “What happened?”

Will sighed and caught her hand in his. “It’s a long story, but…but you wanted to talk about something?”

Her fingers remained in his, and he felt the smooth band of her ring brush against his fingers. “Will, do you know what I’m about to say?”

“No.” _But I fear the worst._  

She sighed. “This isn’t working anymore, Will. I think we should break up.”

His world lurched. “Anne, if this is about Alice—”

“It’s not,” she was still so calm, but Will felt his face start to grow warm. “It’s not about Alice or anyone else. It’s about us. I don’t think we’ve _worked_ for a long time.”

“We are working,” he pleaded. “Anne, please just, let’s figure this out. We can make it work.”

She shook her head and sat on the edge of his bed. “We’ve tried that. We really have, but I can’t just be here for you to lean on when your real life gets to be too much, Will. And your real life isn’t here.”

“I’m not just leaning on you, Anne. I love you!” Will felt like he was slipping, losing his balance, like he was about to fall into something deep and cold.

“Maybe. But you also feel obligated to me.” She reached for his left hand and turned it so the silver band on his finger caught the sunlight in a bright glare. “We both deserve better than that, don’t you think?”

He didn’t know how to answer that. “You can’t leave me. I don’t have anything else, Anne. Alice is gone. Richard is still angry with me. Kit won’t have anything to do with me. I can’t write. I can’t sleep. My father’s dead, and I couldn’t even tell him,” his voice broke away as the regret clawed at his throat. “I couldn’t even tell him who I am, and now I’ll never get the chance. You can’t leave me too.” _I_ _’ll be alone._ He sat down next to her and gathered her hand into both of his, like he had at New Year’s, like he could communicate better through touch than through words, but when had that ever been true for him? Even as words yielded to tears.

“I’ll always be here for you, Will, but I can’t be _with_ you. You deserve to find out who you really are, and I deserve someone who can be with me and be himself with me. Maybe we were that for each other at one point, but we’re different now. We can’t do this anymore.” She’d given this a lot of thought. He could tell from how she spoke, composed and sure, on steady ground. And how, against that, how could he convince her to stay?

He wiped his eyes. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? Even when I tried to be better, I couldn’t be what you want me to be.”

“Will, that’s not it,” the sadness in her voice became clearer. “If anything it’s both of us. I’m not what you need just as much as you aren’t what I need, and that’s okay.”

“And how is that not my fault?”

“It’s not your fault, Will. It’s not about assigning blame. We both made choices that weren’t right for each other. I should’ve said something sooner rather than dragging this out.”

“What?” he blinked at her. He couldn’t believe what she’d said. She’d meant to break up with him sooner than this? The damage he’d done ran that deep. “What do you mean? How? Why?”

She scooted back to lean against the headboard of his twin size bed. Anne patted the space next to her, and they sat together, shoulder to shoulder.

“Do you remember New Year’s Eve? At the party?”

“Yes.” A pang went through him as he remembered Kit’s party. He didn’t like how the remembrance made that new wound ache.

“Were you happy?”

“Yes, we—” He stopped when he saw the look she was giving him.

“Really, Will. _Were_ you happy?”

_Was I happy?_ Happy wasn’t something that came to mind often this past year, not since October. His dad’s death loomed over him so that there didn’t seem to be room for anything else.

But that wasn’t what she meant, and to intentionally miss the point would be equivalent to lying to her.

“No,” he said at last. “I was so scared that night.”

“Scared?”

Will closed his eyes and exhaled. Tears still lined his eyes, and he felt himself balancing on a knife’s edge. If he answered her question as he truly felt, there would be no going back. There would be no stopping the words and feelings he’d been swallowing down all year. If he gave that fear and pain a voice, it would overrun him.

When he spoke, the river ran.

“Scared that I would lose you,” he said. “Scared that I would mess up again. Scared that I would hurt you even as I tried so hard to be what you deserve. It felt like I was walking on glass all night, all year.”

“And you shouldn’t feel like that,” she said. “Neither of us.”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You were scared?”

She nodded. “I was scared of disappointing you. Your friends were so bright and interesting, and I felt entirely out of my depth. You have this whole other life at school, and I didn’t fit into it. Do you see that now?”

_…you’re living this ridiculous double life…_

Maybe he did now. Everyone else had known it before he’d wanted to admit it to himself. No, Will thought, he’d known, but he hadn’t acknowledged that it was a problem. He hadn’t realized that it wasn’t sustainable even as he hurtled towards this inevitable end.

Another understanding had settled over him. There would be no fixing anything with Anne. They were done. He had the feeling of looking over the sea again, not sure what the other side would be like, but this time, he knew there was a waiting shore.

“I wish it wasn’t like that,” he said. He closed his eyes again as he felt more tears come, not sure where they were coming from, but it felt good to cry.

“Oh, Will.” Anne’s hands were light on his shoulders. He didn’t resist as he slid down until his head was in her lap. Her fingers carded through his curls, and he started talking.

His voice didn’t flow properly. There were catches and hiccups and moments where it just stopped altogether. Will’s tale had no logical order. He didn’t narrate month by month, or week by week, but everything was tied together with pain. The pain he felt for hurting Anne before it turned into guilty motivation then into ash and dread. It was separate from the pain he’d felt when his dad died and he hadn’t been there, and it was a pain he knew he was going to carry with him for the rest of his life, right next to the regret of everything he’d never said to his dad. He told her about the daily dull pain that came with vague unhappiness. Will tried to explain it, to pin it down into a neat feeling, but it evaded explanation as it had for the whole year. The pain that was tied up with Kit, with his magnetism, his eyes, his words that struck the things Will guarded so closely.

When he finished, his eyes were dry.

“You could have told me.”

“Which part?”

“All of it.”

_I couldn_ _’t. I couldn’t have been the person you needed if I had._ And maybe that was why they didn’t work together any more. Something of what Anne understood started to settle into recognizable shapes in his mind, and something else settled in his mind. Maybe love was always a tragedy, and this was theirs.

“This is the first time we’ve really talked in a long time,” Anne said.

Will nodded against her leg. It was true, and he wished it wasn’t.

The sun was setting now. The light was a bright amber, and shadows in his room were starting to stretch and creep, to stretch and creep until there wasn’t enough light to cast a shadow anymore.

 

 

**Scene 6**

His room was dark when he woke up, but Will didn’t remember falling asleep. A faint light from the streetlight filtered in around the curtains, but other than that it was dark in his room. He’d fallen asleep when it was still light out. The house was quiet, sleeping too. If he opened his window he could catch the ambient sounds of cars passing on the street and summer crickets set against a still night.

Will was alone, and the quiet was vast.

His head hurt from crying, and he felt hollow like he couldn’t cry anymore even if he wanted to. Because of it, Will felt calmer, and that was probably a good thing. The dread was gone, and there was nothing in its place.

He laughed weakly and tilted his head towards the ceiling. It didn’t feel real that he was alone for the first time in five years. He looked at the silver promise ring on his left hand. It was just a thin, inoffensive silver band that most days, he didn’t even feel on his finger because he’d been wearing it for so long. On days where he forgot to put it on in the morning, he missed it, and spent the entire day with a vague feeling of unease.

Now it had no place. He twisted the ring around his finger before slipping it off. Even in the dim light coming through his open window, he could see the pale band of skin where the ring had been. It reminded him of a scar, but it was too soon for this third wound to resemble anything like a scar. _Anne was gone. She_ _left me_ , and remembering that stirred the ache in his chest like stoking embers into a fire. Will sighed.

There was a knock at his door.

“Come in,” he said, closing his hand around the newly obsolete ring.

His mom opened the door. “Hey,” her voice was quiet, just another part of the summer night, “how are you doing?”

Will shrugged and looked at the ceiling as his eyes started to warm. “I’m fine, just a broken heart is all.” He tried to smile, but his grin broke. He tried to shrug again, but his shoulders shook.

“Come here, Will.” The bed dipped next to him, and his mom gathered him into a hug. Her cheek pressed against the top of his head, and he felt like a small child again, like a small child who’d just scraped his knee and needed his mom to make it better. It used to be that simple, but now, this wasn’t a wound that he could put a bandage on and call okay.

“Heart’s a muscle,” he mumbled. “It heals.”

She held him tight, and Will cried when it was already hard to breathe.

“It does, but that doesn’t really seem to matter right now does it?” she said. The gulf spread out in front of him again, just as vast as before, and why did he ever think that there was an other side where the pain couldn’t reach him?

Part of his brain told him to stop crying. He’d done enough of it already, but the ache in his chest needed to go somewhere so into his tears it went. He wanted answers. When would it not hurt? But before that, how did he make it stop? How did he collect the broken pieces and put them back together, seal the cracks, patch the chips? _How?_

“Time,” Mary said. “Time helps. At some point, you realize you’re okay.” Will didn’t realize he’d spoken out loud, but maybe that too was the pain speaking.

Will was even less aware of the time now that it was already dark. His mom just sat by his side and rubbed his back while he blew his nose and wiped his eyes. Distantly, he realized that he hadn’t heard the twins since this morning.

“Where are the twins?” he asked. His voice came out rough and scratchy, and his throat felt like sandpaper.

“At Margaret’s. They didn’t need to be here for this.”

He was distantly aware that this was a good thing, but the idea didn’t fully form in his head. “They don’t know…that Anne…”

“They know something’s wrong. They’ll probably hug you a lot when they get back tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the warning,” he smiled wanly. The hollow calmness was back, and maybe this time, he really hoped he was out of tears. Kit’s words, Anne’s words, his own fears kept rattling around in his mind. He’d spent the whole year trying to be perfect, the perfect boyfriend, son, business student, whatever. Trying to wear so many hats that he’d lost himself underneath all of them. It was too late to fix some of the mess he’d made, but he still had to try.

“Hey, mom?”

“Yes?”

“Can I tell you something?”

She squeezed his shoulders. “You can tell me anything. How about over a cup of tea?”

 

The mug in front of him was hot on his palms, and he could still see steam swirling up from the surface. _Well,_ he’d come out to his mom, and now the seconds before her response seemed to stretch into minutes. He wasn’t even sure what he was afraid of, but his heart still pounded in his chest while his leg bounced under the table.

She smiled, relieved. “Oh, I’m so glad. I was so worried that you were in trouble, and then you barely came home for Christmas, and I thought…just…”

“What? Wait, you’re relieved?” Will couldn’t believe it. It felt like something had fallen out of sync in his brain, a broken cog that caused the whole contraption to stop working.

“Yes, I knew there was something big that you were keeping from us, but I didn’t want to pressure it out of you. Then yesterday, you came home with a week old bruise on your cheek, so I thought you were going to say you’d gotten into a fight. So yes, I’m glad.”

“Glad? No, Mom, this changes everything. It’s ruining _everything_. I’ve been lying this whole time.” He had to tell her just how horribly he’d messed everything up. She _had_ to understand that this entire mess was his lying fault.

“Will, this changes nothing. You’re not different. I just know a little bit more about you now. Moms love learning more about their kids, especially when it’s good stuff. And this is definitely good stuff, okay?” She sat like a weight had been removed from her shoulders, and as he listened, it felt like a weight had been removed from his too. He was hesitant to say that telling her the truth felt _good_ , but it certainly didn’t feel bad. Sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the night, talking to his mom, being accepted by his mom, maybe he would be able to breathe easier.

“Okay,” he said. She squeezed his hand in response.

Will got up and went around the table to hug his mom. “Is that your official ruling?”

“It is, and if I had my gavel with me, I’d use it.”

He was tired, emotionally and physically, but he laughed, quietly, even happily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm so sorry for how sad they are.
> 
> If this isn't enough sadness for you, Whadyameanhesdead rewrote scene 5.2 from Kit's POV, and you all should go read it and cry like I did. It's called "Don't Leave Me Cold."


	7. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to go ahead and post the epilogue with Act V because they kind of go together. The sadness just continues on.

The trunk of Emilia’s car slammed shut. His suitcase sat on the ground next to him, and his back pack hung over his shoulder. Ready to go. Ready to leave.

“This is for the best. This is what I need,” Kit said to the concern etched across Emilia’s face. She’d worn one version or another of this expression for the past two weeks. Kit knew it wasn’t fair to wish that she wouldn’t look at him like that, but it was another reminder of how everything had crumbled. Concern reminded him that he would be next. It was only the moments immediately after he woke up that felt normal, and they only lasted until he remembered everything that had happened, like morning dew drying up in the sun.

Emerson was dead.

Will…well, he didn’t know what to say about what had happened there. The knot of anger and pain and regret was still tight in his chest, but it was better this way. Anger was easier when he wasn’t ready to forgive. Whenever he felt it loosening, he remembered Will’s words, how his voice had cut like a blade, and how his eyes had flashed like the night sky during a thunderstorm.

_You got dumped. Get over it._

He closed his eyes as his insides twisted like he might be sick.

“You don’t have to go so soon. You could stay,” Emilia said.

Kit opened his eyes. “No, I can’t. We both know I can’t.” _There_ _’s nothing left for me here_ , but he couldn’t say that. Not with Emilia standing in front of him, radiating concern and worry.

“I guess, so,” she said, but she wasn’t convincing. Kit wasn’t going to point that out. He still had a few shreds of decency left.

“You know how to reach me,” he said. “Right?”

She nodded. “Of course I do. Did you think you could just disappear without anyone noticing?”

That had been his plan, to leave without telling anyone, and then the thought had scared him so much he’d started shaking, and he couldn’t go through with it. It scared him that he could just slip off the edge of the world, but it scared him more that he had wanted to, been about to, and he didn’t want to think about what that meant.

Kit pulled her into a hug. She held him tight like she could keep him there and it would be enough.

“You better call me when you land,” she muttered.

She’d taken him to get his hair evened out, and the front still fell into his eyes. “I will.”

“I love you, Kit. You know that right? You’re my best friend.”

Kit’s resolve wavered slightly. Was leaving the best decision? Was he really going to run away to somewhere where no one knew his name? What would he get from that?

The questions and doubts fluttered around before settling again. He’d been through this before, and this time, his doubt felt like a weak echo.

“I know,” he said. “Your love is wasted on me though, you know _that_ , right?”

Emilia’s laugh was shaky and full of exasperation as she pulled away from him. She looked up at him with her head cocked to the side. “You don’t always have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Think no one could love you. It’s not true.”

Kit tensed. He didn’t know what to say to that; more specifically, he didn’t know how to tell her that it was true. He didn’t think he’d be able to hear himself say those words without breaking. Kit readjusted his backpack on his shoulder, and it caught Emilia’s attention.

“You really have to go now, don’t you?”

He wished that she wouldn’t be so sad, but he didn’t have the words to convince her that this was for the best, that he needed this. They would all be better off without him around to cause ruin.

“I really do,” he said. Emilia hugged him one last time, and he kissed the crown of her head. He was going to miss her.

“Bye, Kit! Have a safe flight. You better call me when you land.”

He turned in the doorway and saw her frowning at him. He raised a hand to wave. “I will!”

Kit turned to walk into the airport, and he didn’t look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap on sophomore year! Thank you to everyone who has read this story, commented, and left kudos! It means a lot to see people enjoying this story. 
> 
> Whadyameanhesdead, thanks for literally everything. This story wouldn't be what it is without you and probably wouldn't have been written if you hadn't yelled at me to write it. 
> 
> An update. Year 3 doesn't have a title yet, but it is outlined. I'm in the process of writing it so it'll be a little while till I post that one, but it will get written! It's also the longest year so far in terms of how many scenes there are so it's going to take some time to get it right because I don't start posting until the whole thing is written and edited.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Don't Leave Me Cold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17713334) by [opheliadreaming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliadreaming/pseuds/opheliadreaming), [Whadyameanhesdead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whadyameanhesdead/pseuds/Whadyameanhesdead)




End file.
